Flame in the West
by sian22
Summary: With the Shadow rising Boromir and Faramir lead an attack on an enemy but find all is not as it seems. When Eowyn, new Queen of a plague ravaged land, becomes emeshed in the growing mystery, she and Eomer and Faramir must work to find the truth. Caught in a web of deceit, their love and loyalty are tested. Whom can they trust? And who, or what, is working to bring them down?
1. Prologue

The sun had fallen into the West, painting the soaring mountain tops rose and red and gold, when the last of the assembled Lords of Rohan rose slowly, haltingly, to speak.

With a sharp nod of thanks to Grimbold for his kindly proffered arm, Erkenbrand straightened up as best he could, pulled back his broad shoulders and scanned the smoke-burnished walls and carven pillars of Meduseld. Hours into their debate the torches had not yet been lit-only the hearthfire's ruddy glow warmed his pale face and cast shadows in the growing dim, but it was enough. The few dozen who sat where once a hundred did were close. They could see a powerful and imposing frame shrunk of flesh; a fabled mane of red shocked white.

Heartsore and aching to a soul, the hall fell quiet for the Lord of the Westfold, last to speak but never least, was but lately risen from his own sickbed.

He had sung his lady Aedre to her rest that very morn.

Two days after burying their sons.

.Erkenbrand drew a breath and roughly cleared his throat. He coughed once, but only once.

"My Lords, in years to come when _simbelmynl_ have long blanketed our woe in white the grandsons of our grandsons shall look back upon these evil, black crow days and know that we have fought a battle. As fierce and desperate as Celebrant. As staunch as the Long Winter in the Hornburg. We grieve. We all grieve. But the time has come to do our solemn duty. To look to the succor of the living and choose a successor to Théoden-King. Not his son. Nor his grandson. And though this is sharp and sorrowful beyond all that Vaire can weave," for a moment his grave blue eyes flickered, bright with unshed tears, to the empty dais where sat three cups forlornly on their golden chairs, "by our actions shall we now be judged.

"Three stand before you in whom the royal blood of Eorl flows strong. Herustor is an honourable man, one in his prime, and worthy of your choice. Walda, too. A scholar, honest and honoured, deep in knowledge. But they are both but lately come to Rohan from Stoningland. Though this is right and true, for their mothers, daughters of Thengel-Thrice renowned, cleaved to the home of their birth, I submit to you that now, in this moment, we need one who has lived all their days in the Riddermark. A shieldmaiden who fought at our side in the Third Marshal's Eored. Chosen by Théoden-Ednew to rule in his stead when he and his son first took ill. Éomund's daughter, and that lineage is also royal for he was descended of Eofor, Brego's son, whose grandsire was Eorl himself. I urge you to vote for her, for though her Uncle could not have foreseen the full scything of this ill, she had his confidence. And mine."

With those low but impassioned words the warrior sat stiffly down again to a room full of muttering but also many nods. The First Marshal of the Mark was loved—for his steady calmness as much as his flashing spear- and his views held weight. At his side, Elfhelm and Grimbold, faces windburned from endless days in saddle bringing what little succor they could even unto the Limlight's weedy banks, clapped strong hands upon his shoulder. He would be hale again, the worst of the ague had passed and while Erkenbrand slumped back in his seat, unabashedly mopping the sweat of such little exertion from his brow, the subject of his support held her breath, trembling like an aspen in an eastern wind.

Éowyn resolutely kept her face toward the high doors, away from empty seats and her two elder cousins at her side. _Béma, let me not cry._ She had kept her composure for so very long. Through the white flash of Éomer's horsetail receding in the distance, Éothain at his side. Through her Uncle's last exhausted rattling breath. Through Théodred's twisting agony. Some were taken by the pestilence swiftly and silently; others lingered on, tormented by an aching set like a fire in their bones. Praise _Este_, her beloved cousin had been, by then, insensible, knew nothing of Leoden's fate, and though that was far, far too little comfort, she clung to it, as a welcome branch above a river swollen by Spring's flood.

_And so many many tears_.

Across the hall, half hidden by the last oak pillar, sat one who must suffer with that knowledge down all the years to come. Annwn. Théodred's princess. Her mist grey eyes were red and swollen, her hands clasped so tight the knuckles were stark white, pierced, _again,_ by mention of her little boy. Éowyn wished nothing more in that moment than to slip across the stones, clasp one of those hands in hers and press there a little warmth, but it could not be so.

All that day had channelled to this point and she durst not distract its course.

Éowyn breathed deep and clenched her fists, felt fingernails bite into her palm. Their sharp sting was welcome: it anchored down the doubts that swirled like buzzards.

_Could she do this?_ _When so many she had leaned on were gone?_

Théodred. Dunhere and Gamling. Kentric and Ceorl. Erkenbrand's young Broga. Strong Riders but not strong enough to battle a fever that withered young and old alike, that ran fast as a brush fire through the wold's waving sea of grass. Even the mountain air of the Hornburg had not been proof enough: some, as she, felt ill but never needed to seek their beds; a precious few recovered. Many, frightened like the Worm, fled at first, but now trickled back with no more great mounds dug.

They, too, would need food and clean water and bedding not fouled and reeking. So much work to be done and far too few hands_. _

_Brother, where are you now? _ A dozen times a day the thought came unbidden and Éowyn must bat it away, like a midge or a particularly persistent fly. He would be well. Éothain had his back and it was a waste to borrow yet another ill against the many the crowded close. Done was done. Regardless that he had promised to be there, sworn on _Béma_ and _Móð_i and even the Lord of Air: the sword with its drop of blood could not be sheathed again and she must pick up the pieces smashed upon the floor. Find a way no matter how very hard. No matter that to be alone, again, hurt more than almost any other single thing. _Almost._

"My lords, all rise and cast your vote."

Cedric, their ancient_ Thyle_, raised his wrinkled palms and the Men followed on. One by one they filed before the low, fur-draped chair and dropped one pebble into a leather bag. Brown for Herustor. Red for Walda. White for Éowyn. Clack after stony clack sounded into a hush marred by nothing but shuffling feet. No one spoke. Mardan, the lord of Mering that looked to Aldburg, sneezed once and the entire throng started hard, called for blessed _Este _to dissipate the ill.

Éowyn stood and felt a very common, not sickened, sweat stain the white wool of her gown. If her cousins were plagued by nerves it did not show. Walda, slight and slightly hunched from decades copying rare tomes in Minas Tirith's endless archives, had the calm placidness of one who has never met a situation he could not puzzle through. Herustor had his mother's fair colouring but also his father's Gondorian nose, looked down from his height of confidence and favoured them all with a small tight smile. _Béma. _The waiting was interminable. Walda pulled once at the neck of his dark wool robe. Herustor smoothed his fair mustache for a second time. Perhaps they were anxious after all? None of them could be certain. Were she to guess she would have said that Herustor had the edge. Eldest son of her eldest aunt, he was a man full grown, with heirs, and experience, and a (new found) reverence for this land. His beard was braided, his knife carried the running horse, but his hands were soft. Those of a wealthy Gondor trader not a Rider.

Erkenbrand's words would count for some, but most?

Éowyn watched heart in mouth as Cedric began to count the tally. Each stone was lifted out one by one, set in small piles upon a cloth of velvet green and white. Two brown. One Red. Two more brown for Herustor, and then, thank _Béma,_ one white for her. She risked a glance toward the tables. Elfhelm's expression as ever was quite shuttered, but Grimbold's was relieved. He and Théodred had always been her supporters; made the time for a bewildered little girl that her Uncle, however much he would, could not.

Three votes she could count on. And the thanes about Aldburg. And perhaps the settlements nearest Edoras. At first the mantle of leadership had been expedient: good folk were sickening rapidly all about, it was _someone's_ duty to organize a swift response and they knew her, trusted her judgement and believed in her ability. Then, as harried days became a sennight and a horrific sennight became three desperate months, Éowyn found that she was comfortable, even thrived helping her people. She could lead them out of this waking nightmare and into a better place. If they would honour her with the task.

The candle notches burned. They dripped steadily, almost certainly as they always did but they felt strung out, as if time suspended in the hush and minutes passed before the servant girls piled more logs upon the fading fire, refilled horns run dry.

Three more white. One red.

Her stomach bound in knots. Éowyn lifted up her chin to where Ithil's silver glow streamed through the eastern windows high up beneath the deep gold eaves. It was a comfort. Just like the familiar faces of Folcwine and Fréa, Brytta and Thengel, kings now gone but crowding close on the covered walls. Her gaze, as ever, lingered on the bright gold of Eorl's tapestry. Horn raised, his hair a banner in the wind, the ancient Limlight's foaming water tumbled green and white about his knees. So skilled were the weavers then, that she could almost hear its roar and rush, fancied it was almost at her fingertips, and then, out of all imagining, the rush and roar was real.

A golden cup was pressed into her palms, a cape of silver wolf was draped about her slender frame and words never uttered in Edoras before, nor Rohan, nor Calendardon before that, were spoke:

"Ferðu Theoden son of Thengel. Hail, Éowyn, Queen of the Mark!"

.

* * *

Well, we are finally on our way! This story will update every month to 6 weeks, in and around other wips that are wrapping up.

A note on names and characters. I have chosen Móði for the Rohirric name for the Vala Tulkas-he is the brave warrior son of Thor in Norse mythology and so I think it fits. You will have noticed some familiar character names and some new. Chapter 1 to come will have a full character list for the whole story next time round. For now, Annwn is Theodred's widow; Leoden their young son who has just died, and Kentric, Ceorl and Broga are Riders of Elfhelm and Erkenbrand's eoreds, Cedric is Edoras' Thyle, a ceremonial position in Anglo Saxon society focused on preserving knowledge.

As I note in the summary this is an AU-The most obvious difference is Boromir lives! And some parts of the Fellowship will wind in, but this is predominantly centered on Two Halls if you will instead of Two Towers: Meduseld and Merethrond. There will be a lot of things different from LOTR, but hopefully in an exciting way :)

Lest anyone accuse me of being G.R.R. Martin-like: most of the dying has already happened! Most.

Annafan and Wheelrider has been here for me through the genesis of this and have been amazing beta-readers and supporters. Without them I couldn't have begun. And Carawyn also is wonderfully eagle-eyed on my tenses and comma-problem.


	2. Thunderbolt

**Book One:**

** Through Shadows**

**Dramatis Personae:**

**Rohan**

Éowyn: Queen of Rohan, First Marshal of the Mark

Éomer: Second Marshal of the Mark, Crown Prince of Rohan, Lord of Aldburg

Théoden: King of Rohan (deceased)

Théodred: Crown Prince of Rohan (deceased)

Léoden: Prince of Rohan, son of Théodred and Annwn (deceased)

Annwn: Princess of Rohan, widow of Théodred, Lady of the Chamber to the Queen

Elfhelm: Third Marshal of the Mark

Erkenbrand: Lord of the Westfold

Grimbold of Grimslade: his nephew and heir.

Eothain: Second to Eomer

Hérustor: Son of Theoden's elder sister, Captain of the Dunhere Éored.

Godwyn: Eowyn's lady's maid

Omrun: Chief healer of Rohan, formerly of Harad

Cedric: Thyle, preserver of knowledge in Edoras

**Gondor:**

Denethor: Steward of Gondor, latterly Prince

Boromir: Captain-General and latterly Prince of Gondor, eldest son of the Steward

Faramir: Captain of the Ithilien Company, youngest son of the Steward

Merelan: Lady of Gondor, wife of Boromir

Hallas: latterly Prince of Gondor, son of Boromir and Merelan

Ganelon: Lord of Langholm, father of Merelan

Ysabet: Lady of Lebennin, formerly fiancé of Faramir

Devorin: Lord of Langstrand, councillor of Gondor

Faldorn: Principal advisor and councillor of Gondor

Tordan: Lord of Gwilir, councillor of Gondor

Imrahil: Prince of Dol Amroth

Elanne: Princess of Dol Amroth, wife of Imrahil

Lothíriel: Princess of Dol Amroth

Elphir: Prince of Dol Amroth.

Erchirion: Prince of Dol Amroth

Amrothos: Prince of Dol Amroth, assistant to Galman

Mablung: First Lieutenant of Ithilien Company

Col: Sargeant and scout of Ithilien Company

(and more will appear as we go)

* * *

**Chapter One: Thunderbolt**

_August 3018_

The world on a morning set to be warm and green was a surpasingly lovely place.

This somewhat atypically poetic observation occurred to the man who crouched in the bracken, stiff and damp, fingers aching from hours of holding his mount's headstall. The wood at his back was silent. The first players in dawn's chorus had yet to try a note, and all around was hushed. Waiting with an almost breathless anticipation for the first clear rays of sun.

_They are taking their sweet time, _thought Boromir, squinting into to the grey half-light; peering but knowing he would not see the Rangers and their Captain melt back into place. T'was their job to be invisible—but he, impatient for his report and to be away, futilely scanned the track for odd wisps of leaf and loam. It was past full dark but not yet light enough for the horses to navigate. Soon. Soon, for out across the empty plain, as far as his eye could see, the sky was still a blanket of deep indigo and barest gold, streaked like the vanes of a great eagle feather dusted with fading stars. Away in the distance the river and its winding tributaries were as a lace of silver glass. Placid and smooth; quite untroubled by the works of Men and the storm that would soon follow on the rising wind.

It was, he reflected grimly, both a promise and a metaphor. The one unnatural feature in the landscape dozed, oblivious, below their hiding place; about to be beset by a storm of quite another sort, and _that _thought made him snap the little brass spyglass shut and ruefully shake his head.

He, Gondor's famously blunt Captain-General, enjoying scenery and indulging his little brother's penchant for flowery words?

They had truly been poised and ready for far too long.

"How many?" he asked gruffly to the deeper shadow on his right when the familiar scent of wet wool and pine _finally_ grew strong.

"Two hundred camped," answered Faramir, a little muffled by the mask and hood. "Twelve guards holding the perimeter."

More than first reported then, but not so very, very great. His brother's green gauntleted hand reached up to pull back the necessary coverings and the two briefly shared an unsettled look. This was unwelcome news, come like a stormcrow after more. Two days ride by narrow hidden trackways, a rocky climb and then their first view of the Enemy: the beginnings of a rough stockade stood defiantly beside the desultorily flowing stream; more trees and planks were stacked man high beside the tents. The forest, dim and cool, and prized for its straight lebrethon, sported a myriad empty slots- like a child with a gaping mouthful of missing teeth. A pile of crude swords and helms, pike-axes and even the sling of a catapult, stood near.

The audacity. Building new. A half day's ride from Gondor's northern border.

Boromir clenched one large mailed fist. Ithilien had been overrun since his grandfather Echthelion was a lad, but Anórien had been kept safe by Cair Andros' steady watch for centuries. Barad-dûr, sagely, had not dared to test the River's defenses yet, and though he knew that time would come—Valar grant it be long away—this smacked of a wizard's arrogance. And pride. And greed.

Saruman. Théodred's old foe. How his sword-brother would turn in his barrow to see Dunlendings here. Openly and with force.

It could not be let to stand.

"How many mounted?"

"Only the captains," answered Faramir quietly, "though the wargs will be fast enough." He nodded toward the far ruddy orange glow of banked firelight where slumbered a mass of tawny, matted fur. "Mablung counts two score."

_So many?_ Wargs could sprint much faster than a man, some almost faster than a horse. The image of youngsters, terrified, fleeing for their lives before snapping, slavering jaws made his stomach sick. "And the Filth?"

His brother quickly shook his head. "Nay. Not here. Or not here yet. Col has a little of the Dunland speech. He heard no word of them."

"I like it not."

"Aye." His brother's nod was curt, grave eyes pale as the mist that had begun to flow downward to the river's shore. He was unhappy. With all of it. The ford just rocky and deep enough to ruin the element of surprise; the stingy complement of men; the orders to strike far beyond their range- secretly, without backup or surety of support. His, and their uncle Imrahil's, argument for a larger, formal force, whose very solidity would convince the Enemy to break ranks, had fallen on deaf ears. The Steward would have his sortie and his sons must make it so. With far fewer cavalry than Boromir would have liked, truth be told, but that could not be helped.

Those who had refused had their reasons. He would not call them craven. Merely ill informed. But nothing in Middle-Earth could make him speak aloud of _that_; the certainty that lay flickering, secret and hard-won, below his father's words.

He had seen the cost, and for him, rooted as always in the here and now, it was too very great.

Boromir shivered once, even as Faramir's quiet voice broke across his thoughts. "The sun's return draws near. When do we move out?"

"On my call. Pass the word to mount."

Faramir pulled up his mask and hood, slipped silently back and went to alert the men. Boromir gave in to temptation and pulled out the glass again. Still no stirring from the tents. Their denizens slumbered late with the heavy-limbed, bone-deep weariness that came from hewing wood. The guards, short, powerful, swarthy men in leather and ragged wolf furs, had stood since moonrise. One of them, shorter and squatter, with hams for thighs and massive palms holding an even more massive, black-tipped spear, had begun to feel it: a dark head drooped, black helm nodding down but the other roughly shook his arm. Soon enough, the little one and his shift mate would gurgle a last futile cry into green leather gloves as their bodies slipped to the ground.

"Not long now, my friend." Boromir, leaned forward, gathered up the reins and absently patted Heruin's dappled coat. The stallion was restive, catching a little of his master's energy. Just at dawn's light, while the night and the day yet battled in bands of dark and whiter-grey, was the time to move. Behind him, arrayed like scattered leaves, were four score of Gondor's finest men. Hand-picked, and volunteers, he could feel the weight of their anticipation, the jangle of nerves keyed up. The flash of the rising sun would tip spears and swordblades with fire, would make of their ranks a river, and surely that was enough. The little Dunlanders came barely to their shoulders. Mixed with the element of surprise, they should prevail, but…

Their foe was fierce and canny. And a long, long way from home. Boromir had seen too many, cut off, desperate men suddenly battle with the strength of ten to have much illusion on that score.

Enough.

He swung up into the saddle, loosened the great silver-tipped horn at his belt; kissed, for luck, the small oval miniature of Merelan that lay always near his heart. And brought the Kine horn of Gondor to his lips.

The low, thrumming double note echoed off trunks and moss and rock.

"Gondor!" he cried and the company thundered down the hill.

.

~~~000~~~

.

The first, stomach-churning, ominous sign of difficulty came just as they began to gain the upper hand.

It was now full dawn. On either side of the shallow stream the grasses waved and glowed, tipped golden by a fine, fair day, but about the bare stockade all was crushed and flat. The Hillmen, dragged by panic from their beds, were riled like ants about their nest, swarming Gondor's soldiers with fierce war cries, their ululating piercing the morning quiet as they stood their ground with grim determination.

The first frenzied moments of uncertainty had begun to crystallize. Boromir, from his stallion's great height, cut and thrust, his arm and sword a seamless whole, like a smith hewing hot bending iron. The steady pattern of blow and block, turn and strike kept on. Heruin's grey fetlocks were flecked red with blood and black with mud for the small grey wargs tried ever and anon to snap at him, only to fall to the warhorse's sharp shod hooves. He saw with silent admiration that the troop and Faramir's Rangers fought with brutal efficiency, dispatching each foe as they appeared and he had just paused, reined in to draw a quick steadying breath, when an uneasiness began to raise hairs at his nape.

_Where were the Uruk-hai Father had spoken of_? _Why were there just the Hillmen?_ _What more would be brought to bear?_ None of what presented was exactly as described and clearly his brother felt the disquiet too. Faramir was pressing on the right, driving a path for his Rangers to close with shorter bows and swords, when he glanced down and frowned at a patch of arms that lay by the edge of the now burning palisade. The puzzled furrow on his brow was twin to Boromir's. _What was it?_ Something felt not right, not just the altogether different experience of fighting Men. Orcs Boromir had battled by the score—short, squat and slavering-never well armed or organized, but these Dunlanders were more doughty. Even trapped with fire at their backs and foes at the front they refused to yield; Col had shouted in crude Dunlendic for them to lay down arms and they would be spared, but not a one had flinched.

Their foul war beasts still snapped teeth, their pike-axes swung. And then, their faces changed.

Wide white-rimmed eyes of throttled fear brightened to relief; desperate cries of fury became shouts of jubilation, swords raised and hands pointing back towards the sun.

This was no feint. There was scarce time to look around before the reinforcements came thundering through. The Gondorians more felt so much as heard their rush like breakers crashing to the shore; Men on horseback, all pounding hooves and helms of steel, spears glinting in the sun.

"Where did they come from?!"

His startled yell to his brother was answered with only "Wizard knows!" before Faramir ducked and swerved, his own Rochar steered by instinct, the stallion kicking out at the smaller Dunlendings even as his master parried the flashing spears. There was no time to think. Herluin belled out a challenge as Boromir twisted in the saddle, snatched up a second sword and, without slowing, brought his arm to where the battle raged.

Gondor was now hard beset. His first clear look was more than sobering. Here were the enemy he had most feared: armour inscribed with ancient runes, horses bigger and far stronger than the Hillmen's, long hair in braids, eyes below the helms hard with purpose. Could the wizard transport a whole company on wings? It seemed so, for his father's spies had said nothing of nearer threats; not north or west, and those to the east were busy: the sortie from Cair Andros would have them pinned.

The fight became more serious and dangerous all at once. Boromir, reins and grip slick with sweat, wheeled Herluin to face the new enemy eye to eye and felt his stomach drop. They were cut off. This was no small raiding party but dozens of mounted men standing between them and the river. He yelled to the troop to brace but it was too late: no time to bring the horn to his lips before the second ground-shaking charge. There came a sickening collision, all bunched muscle and wild cries, a lightening flare of pain and then his left hand was numb. The second sword dropped at once. Momentum took the enemy crashing through the ranks, yelling in their language words he did not know. The mass thundered through, striking to disarm, knocking swords from hands and pinning the Gondorians at spear point. Col beside, his mount panicked, slewed right and went down to a piercing spear with a hollow gut-wrencing cry. There was a brief dreadful stillness and then, shocked back to the here and now, his men regrouped, fighting for their lives from a tight centred knot.

Another burst of language and the Dunlendings fell away, pulled their snapping creatures with them and left the Gondorians to an ever tightening, inexorable ring of fast running grey and dun and sorrel, five lines deep.

The ring slowed and stopped, came to rest with a forest of steel pointing in.

_Valar_, how could the Tower Stone be so far wrong? _'We cannot take the battle to two fronts._' His father's words were a hard forged blade but gave little comfort now. It was true. Men in league with Isengard and there would be no easy escape. The soldiers saw it too, and they hesitated, arms lowered just an inch, knowing the certain ill of facing so many horse. Surely they must surrender or be slaughtered? What would it profit Gondor to lose them all but was to surrender to be slaughtered? What would greet them in foul Orthanc? Its dark dungeons? Coercion by means both foul and fair?

Boromir had no worry for his own strength, he knew his love for their people would keep him whole but what of the other men? And Faramir? The sons of the Steward would be the wizard's gloating prize; chess pieces, bartered like sheep at market. The thought was daunting. Saruman must not get both.

With a grey heaviness across his heart, Boromir raised his horn and blew a few notes he had never played in earnest before; watched as his brother's hood snapped his way with an instant protest on his lips.

_No brother. It must be you._

One of them had to bear witness and one must be a bargaining chip.

They both knew which was dearer to Denethor.

"Obey, damn you!"

There was no time to argue. Only the slimmest of windows was sliding shut. Seconds seemed to slow, low and thick like the muddy river, and at last Faramir nodded, kicked his stallion into a sudden gallop. Mablung, on his right and closer to the front, also broke away. They made for the only gap, a bare half horse view of green where a knot of Hillman had pushed in.

Rochar's ears went back, the men's faces set, and there came a scream, a crashing blow and a spearman was on the ground. Mablung won through. Faramir began to launch the grey through the hole but the enemy's lieutenant was too fast. He broke off with a knot of men, hooves flying so fast their muddied trophies flew from their helms. Spears out and set, they swarmed the Ranger Captain. Rochar swerved too hard, wildly careened and unseated Faramir. His brother was on the ground, still defiant, body doing what it was trained to do, but his sword was quickly swept away.

Oddly calm, Boromir watched it all unfold like a sick and unbreakable nightmare. With three spears but feet from face he did all that he could—kept focus there, away from Mablung's Celle who now flew across the stream and began to climb the slope. The Ranger gave her her head, the mare's haunches churned powerfully, rising first one and then two benches up.

_Manwe_ grant her wings, he thought, expecting the enemy to give chase but then the first of two more surprises came to frame their day.

The wizard's men let them go.

_Why? How? _Boromir had no time to ponder, swallowed down a hard knot of worry in his throat as he watched the enemy Captain, smooth-cheeked and clearly young, dismount; push through the ring of spears to set a heavy sword against the White Tree upon his chest.

"Yield, Boromir of Gondor," they said, in perfect but oddly accented Westron. "Yield and you shall be spared."

Pretty words_._ A Wizard's promise could never be trusted but in that moment there was literally nothing else that he could do.

It was over.

_Valar_ help them, they had lost.

.

~~~000~~~

.

"Hold fast."

Kadrun shuddered, gripped his trembling fingers about the black leather on of the fell beast's neck and closed his eyes; knees tight about the rough bare hide as the great wings gave a mighty sweep. They sprang aloft. High twisted towers and steep rocky crags quickly fell away, they rose on the warm and stinking air and Kadrun clung, thinking that there were many things his senses chose to no longer recognize. The reek of smoke and fume from Morgul's ever-bubbling cauldrons. The dead rotting stench from bat-like wings. The harsh rasp of Orcish-speech.

All of it he became accustomed to. But never the vertigo of flying on Nazgul-back.

The wind screamed past. He clenched tighter to the tiny purchase, thankful this was not the first time he had done an errand to their lord and master. He knew the sudden rush of hot cindered air after streaming cloud meant that they were near; braced as the beast's great claws clutched at the obsidian of the tower-top and they shuddered to a stop.

_'Be swift and I shall bear you back.' _

The low, hoarse words slithered to his ken and he nodded quickly, threw a leg back across the mount 's high back and slid down onto the stone, thankful to find himself safely on stone floor. He wrapped the folds of his black cloak about himself for at this great height, so close to their Lord's demesne, no matter the red pulsing in the furnaces below, the air was oddly chill.

He picked up his feet, hurried through the maze of halls, instinct and memory pulling him to the round chamber where his master sat. The space this time was empty but for six black pennants emblazoned with the Eye, lidless and all seeing. Blessed Dark. There would be none of_ them_-the Mouth and other useless hangers on who served no purpose that he could see.

Sauron the Mighty needed no sustenance but strength, no drink save adulation. 'Twas just and fair that he imprint order on the world, take back the imperfect Music, and (the little man felt an exquisite rush of anticipation) reward those who pleased him in his labours. As he had done once before. The Dark Lord had blessed Kadrun with a visage. Wove shadow until the Umbari's shoulders broadened, until his skin paled and his brow became proud and high. Noble and obviously Numenorean in descent- an exact replica of the last who dared challenge the Witch King.

Earnur, for all his vaunted prowess, had lasted only as long as an average sparring bout amongst the Trolls. It always made their master smile to see his vanquished enemy.

Kadrun walked forward, boots oddly soundless on the obsidian floor and prostrated himself before the one to whom he had pledged his soul and heart.

"Rise. What news lieutenant?" Sauron lifted his pale face from the tumbling scene that lay trapped between the black tips of a scepter and deigned to notice his visitor. Today he chose to be fair and terrible, Noldor-dark but eyes still filled with otherness. Yellow. Rimmed with fire and split by a dark window into a vastness so unquenchable Kadrun felt he might lose himself in the depths.

As usual he had to swallow thrice before he spoke_. "_My Lord, your servant of Angmar bids me tell you a battle has been fought this day. It will please you to see the aftermath."

_"_A battle?" Long elegant fingers tipped in shining black clenched on the ebon shard that served as a throne. "What gave my Captain to think that_ I_ would have need of news of one battle in the west, when other, greater needs demand my gaze?"

"The combatants, Sire," Kadrun squeaked, through a voice that balked like a stag in harness. "I have seen them this hour past in the Morgul Stone."

An eyebrow, perhaps familiar to the smiths of Eregion, quirked up._ "_Have you? Where?"

"Mering Stream, Master."

The Witch King's faithful lieutenant was always awed how little effort it took the Lord of Barad-dûr to See. Images flew on spreading wings, tumbled within the scepter. The jagged teeth of Ephel Duath. Cair Andros where Men scurried like so many futile bees. Plain and forest and riverbank flowing until he spied the fields of waving grass now trampled by too many hooves. Amidst jumble of the little Dunlenders, Men, tall and often smug, scions long from Andúnië, stood with faces bruised and blooded. Vanquished utterly.

Two, taller than the rest and with the cursèd, unwithered Tree scribed upon their chests, knelt with hands bound behind their backs before a mass of spears that were tipped by the pennant of a running horse on a field of green.

Sauron began to laugh.

"This is well indeed. That upstart wizard shall be of help yet. Men of a fading glory bested by Men who refused the call. Yes. _Yes_. This will do. Quite nicely."

A jolt of relief quivered through Kadrun's core. It made him so giddy, so reckless that he dared to ask a question. ""My Lord? What shall you do?"

"Do?" The walls rumbled ominously before a grin spread across a face so long corrupt, it was no more than a thin red slash from a Southron's arcing sword. "Let this be a lesson to you," instructed the Dark Lord.

"Never interfere. Never interfere with your enemies when they are a making a mistake."

.

* * *

.

Don't throw vegetables at me ok? I promise it will work out! Eventually. (grin)

Thank you so very very much to everyone who has favourited and followed so far. And to Annafan and Wheelrider for betawork and discussion. Are you all excited? I am… this story has been in my head for so long J


	3. Gicel

It took two full days to reach the high gleaming halls of Edoras.

The first passed for the prisoners in something of a blur. Before Anor had risen to its full height, before the white mists shimmering in the watervales had melted into memory the wounded had been tended to, hasty prayers said above the Hillmen's pyre and Gondor's vanquished escorted, bound, back across the border by the Éored's Captain.

The first expected drops of rain began to fall just as the Riders mounted up. The Steward's sons, side by side, hands bound, stallions on lead reins, rode at the centre of the troop; at first they did speak for the rain, and then, when the sun at last appeared again, left each other to their troubled thoughts. The Rohirrim set a fast but not punishing pace. They were clearly making for some waypoint; and by the time the group clattered to a stop in the dusty forecourt of an empty barracks it was well on to dusk.

Above, the peaks of the White Mountains were stained a blue and purple deepening to jet; below, the dry dales darkened to old gold.

Boromir, back aching and worried for his men, swung a leg across Herluin's saddle bow, slid down and grunted at the impact. Hours in the saddle had stiffened every part of him. He stretched a little gingerly and then turned at the sound of his brother's quiet voice.

"Boromir will you help?"

_Valar_. Of course Faramir could not get down. His little brother had calmly and efficiently for hours ignored the damp dark patch upon his tunic side. Though the spear had missed the most vital parts, it had torn muscles he needed to dismount.

"Steady now," Boromir murmured, reaching up his bound hands awkwardly to brace what amounted to a barely controlled plummet. Faramir landed with a sharp pained hiss; knees buckling, as Boromir frowned and did his best not to panic at wan checks. "You should be getting that wound checked again," he grumbled softly.

Grey eyes like to his own rolled, but only just. "It is bound."

"Yes, and you can barely stand. I'll see to Rochar," he insisted, reaching for the sweating stallion's reins, but a leather vambrace shot forward. None too gently it yanked them back.

"To the hall. Both of you," ordered a rider with no blond upon his chin. The boy (for he surely was too young to shave) jerked his head in the direction of the door.

"But…" The protest that began upon Boromir's lips quickly died. The Rohir's eyes flashed dark with annoyance as he shoved the Gondorian toward another who stood solidly blocking their way. "We would never ill treat a horse," the lad ground out. "Much less a man. They will be fed and watered with the rest."

Boromir frowned: there had been a noticeable, pointed emphasis on '_we_', but it would solve nothing rising to the bait. The Éored's horses were hale and proud: their grey and sable coats glistened, their eyes were bright and manes braided on their proud necks. Reluctantly he gave up a soldier's most basic chore. "Thank you," he nodded curtly, before following Faramir up to the steps.

The wooden building before them was large, enough to house an entire troop, but looked unkempt. Weeds thrust up through the cobblestones and wasp nests adorned the weatherbeaten eaves. "Where is this place?" he asked in Westron.

"Halifirien," was the guard's gruff reply, and Boromir looked about him puzzled. _This_ was the barrack below Halifirien?! Somewhere above the rocky slopes of pine and fir, white _uilos_ covered the mound of Elendil's empty tomb on Eilenaer's broad summit. It was no longer the King's resting place, but was revered by the Rohirrim and Gondor both. The Riders of Aldburg's Éored had long maintained the last warning beacon near to Gondor's edge, but the once proud guardhouse looked deserted, abandoned.

"There are no warders?" he asked wonderingly, unable to imagine forsaking that sacred watch. When Rohan had abandoned their mutual defense? And why?

He had not realized he'd spoken the last aloud until the guard pointed toward a row of crude markers below the fresh green of a nearby spreading linden tree. They sprouted like toadstools, higglety-pigglety as if placed with without due thought or care.

"They all lie under stone," said the Rohir heavily. "Folk will not come here now."

_All?_ In shock, Boromir looked about again. The first markers were carved in Tengwar after the fashion of Fenmark but the middle were simple staves nailed with Béma's two branching 'horns'. The last, most ominously, were merely sticks standing at drunken angles, as if the gravedigger had not the strength to care.

_Nienna's mercy_.

This stark reality stayed with him all through the eve. They were escorted to a makeshift cell that sported a scruffy bird nest, long abandoned by its occupants, in the firegrate and old rushes on the floor; given bread and a thin stew to eat—whatever their captors had planned it was not starvation- and when dark fell, the pair reluctantly curled up in their cloaks upon the sides that hurt the least. There was no sound of a battle celebration from the hall nor boasting of their feat, only the steady drizzle of more rain. About mid-eve there came the pounding of returning hoofbeats.

"Brother, are you well?" Boromir asked when Faramir shifted restlessly on his pallet for the tenth but not final time. It was cool upon the stone but not too very cool to sleep.

"Enough."

_And that_, he thought, thinking of the forlorn sight of Col's horse led away, _would have to do_.

.

~~~000~~~

.

At first light they broke their fast with a simple porridge and dried fruit, mounted up again, heading westward with the sun and a thicket of blush-tipped spears at their backs. None spoke. They stopped to water the horses, eating in the saddle, still well and truly trussed, but allowed to ride side by side. Though Boromir watched for a chance to break away, none came—the Rohirrim well knew how to transfer prisoners on horseback-and so he tried to note the land, make best use of their clearer view of the countryside.

The linden and small gnarled oaks of the wild foothills quickly flattened out to field and fen. The day was bright and warm, an odd juxtaposition for one dreading what was to come: the sweet smell of summer berries rose up underfoot, the diving larks sang thin and clear, the yellow butterflies danced above the feathergrass.

All day he and Faramir watched curiously as the land changed. The first villages appeared just a league off the Great West Road. They were solemn, empty places. Fields left fallow waved with yellow poppies. House after house sported unkempt thatch bedraggled after the winter snows and no welcoming plume of hearth fire. They stood, alone, shutters open and insides dark, like skulls with gaping eyes; and ominously they bore ochre circles on their doors.

Rohirrim wrote no histories but as traders they long used numbers. "It marks naught. Zero." explained Faramir sadly, catching Boromir's gaze. Naught. None alive. Hamlet after hamlet, and though the brothers were appalled, the Riders' faces were set, unsurprised and simply carrying on. In Rohan it was ever so—what was past was done; mourned swiftly and sung in honour, then put aside to look forward, endure what Béma and the world song should bring.

But at the hard pack of the crossroads, Boromir began to doubt. Faramir had spent the past decade below Ithilien's wild dryad trees but Boromir knew the road; had passed that very way many times with Théodred. The scale of loss was staggering. Inns empty. Barns briskly tunnelling the warm wind. Roads eerily quiet: few cartwheels thumped in the dirt or oxen swished at flies.

By Little Ald, his heart was gasping. Even those villages still occupied were different. The tilled fields were not gold, but green- planted in rye not wheat, tilled by women and the few children that they saw. The usual lively bustle of market squares was muted; the flags that fluttered from every gate and stall were tattered; their ragged ends rippling in the breeze, the proud white Mearas on green gold field sunbleached to almost invisibility. For a people that once came out of harder Mirkwood, adapted to the steppe and flew those flags with pride as sign of their new home, to let them go? It was unthinkable.

How could a people move on from such a tragedy?

As they rode through the dusty streets Boromir watched Rohan's young Queen ride at the head of the Éored. Éowyn was no longer the shy little cousin of Théodred he remembered from visits past. She rode head high, astride in white kid breeches and leather armour, gold mane loose about her slim shoulders-every inch the proud shieldmaiden, but above all attentive.

At every village they passed, the troop would slow and halt; folk would come warily from their homes and the few fields that lay not fallow.

"What do you need?" Éowyn would ask from atop her tall grey stallion and in every place the answer was the same:

'Hands.'

"I will do what I can." she would promise to the cluster of thin, weary women and the response:

"_Westu Hal_, Éowyn–Gicel," came at every verge.

"What does it mean?" he whispered to Faramir in Sindarin but his brother only shook his head.

"I know not."

In another time and place he might have asked their guards but the ire of the Riders was as a wall, soot-stained and solid; not a one spared a word beyond clipped commands. The few looks spared their way quickly turned, briefly washed with a sort of frank puzzlement, as if they could not understand how any of them reached these straights.

~~~000~~~

.

It was this odd incensed wondering that first set the niggle of doubt in Boromir's brain. "Why are they so very angered?" he whispered to his brother as the day wore on, bending close, relieved when none jerked him back. "How could they not expect Gondor would stop a naked threat?"

Faramir's dark eyebrows raised. "I do not know. It is almost as if they feel…," he paused, searching for a word, "incensed. Shocked that they are opposed. But it should not be so. _They_ are the ones embracing ancient foes." He rubbed at a healing scrape upon his nose with his forearm. "Are they coerced? From their anger I might think so."

As usual, his little brother had read his thoughts. The state of the kingdom was far worse than Lord Hurin had reported in the aftermath. The frantic messages of plague had first come fast and hard, and then, for many weeks, none at all arrived as the messenger posts broke down. Heartbreak after heartbreak overtook Rohan, but even Minas Tirith's circles were not immune. Merelan's grandsire succumbed. And Boromir's great aunt. But though many sickened, most did not die. Faramir's Ysabet, remarkably still looking pretty and dainty whilst flushed upon a pillow, recovered quickly. As did Denethor, although for him it was apparently through sheer force of will: the bitter shadows on his face would not relent.

Gondor in the aftermath sent supplies and healers, stores of winter wheat, stretching themselves for the need was great.

It had come as a surprise to exactly none of them that Mordor chose this time of trial to test them hard. For months Anórien and upper Anduin, Ithilien and Poros had been swarmed with Orcs. For the past year the sons of the Steward slept mostly under bow and canvas; always on the move, meeting each incursion swift and hard. Was that why the Rohirrim rode with the Dunlendings? They had been assailed too much? Forced to succumb to Isengard's influence?

Boromir could think of reasons but none were good. And though one particular putrid influence–the name that made Théodred reflexively horch and spit— was dead, there were many ways for malignant purpose to be spread.

He leaned as close as his abused back muscles would allow. 'What did you see?"

"At the stockade?" Faramir glanced about nervously, but their guards seemed unconcerned so long as they placidly followed the leading reins. "No sign of living Wargs or Uruk-hai," he noted softly. "But heads of them lay upon the ground."

"Heads?!" Shocked, Boromir barely kept his voice from carrying. "You are certain they are Uruk-hai?"

"Yes. Helms of dark metal neatly severed at the skull. Each with the white hand upraised."

"The wizard's sigil?"

His brother nodded quickly. "Yes. The White Hand of Curunir the Wise, disciple of Aulë. A pile of sharpened staves lay nearby. As if they planned to decorate their wall with trophies."

The youngest guard, Mor, looked up and frowned. Faramir patted Rochar, carefully kept his gaze straight ahead. "A falling-out amongst the servants of Isengard?" he murmured.

"Not likely." Boromir shook his dark head. "If Saruman knew, they would all be punished swiftly. I do not understand," he added unhappily. In all the kingdoms the Uruk-hai were the most feared Filth of all: they flourished under sunlight and crossed water with aplomb.

And had battled side by side with the foul Dunlendings for five hundred years.

His brother's dark brows furrowed. "Father has been right. And wrong."

True. No Orcs trampled the golden wold that they had seen but the Éored did ride openly with Dun-Men. At that moment two of them, bearing wicked knives and baldrics, were ensconced on strong fat ponies just behind. The reality was simply ludicrous. No Rohir he had ever ridden with would have suffered those who bowed knee to Orthanc. "Could they hide that they consort with Orcs?"

"On the plains?" Faramir was skeptical. They both knew the reach of the Tower Stone. "I would think that nigh impossible. But Dunlending or Uruk-hai, the Queen's intentions must be understood."

Both brothers exchanged a worried glance. Whatever help, or not, the wizard may have been, clearly the reports of chaos after Theoden's death were somewhat exaggerated. It was no ill-lead cavalry that had swiftly disarmed Gondor's finest. Boromir, who knew something about fate—the one that made him heir and his diplomatic, thoughtful little brother spare—pondered the twist that had given Rohan her Queen. What would he have done in Eowyn's place? Alone and likely overwhelmed. Without her brother at her side. Would he have bent knee to the one who ruled Orthanc? Never. Théodred would never also, of that he was more than sure. And the people of Orome, of Béma who loved most the Secondborn, they also would never follow such a one.

It made the puzzle of what their father saw more troubling. "There but for the music go we all," he muttered, thinking of the man who watched a gathering storm from his own pearl and shining tower.

Faramir sighed heavily. Quite another reality flit uneasily across his narrow face. "Father will be furious. He will blame me, for my Rangers were at the heart of it."

Boromir swiftly disagreed, ""No," I had the command. The fault is mine."

Yet even as he strove to reassure, he worried that Faramir had the right of it. Denethor, stern and remote, but never needlessly unkind, had grown, of late, irascible. Prone to fits of temper and outright derision, especially where his brother was concerned. He had been incensed at Faramir and Imrahil's objections to the plan. Both had argued openly; his Uncle even throwing up his hands, ultimately refusing to be in any way involved. Faramir had no such choice. 'I_ am unswayed by your brilliant thesis_,' Denethor had said sarcastically and Faramir had flushed. They were too much alike in some ways, his father and his brother: both could argue a point as if they had it in a wrestling hold, but they had one crucial difference.

Only one was Steward. And always had the final say.

"I will write to him," Boromir offered, a little too forcefully, for suddenly the lead reins jerked.

"Shush," ordered Mor, trying out a heavily accented Westron. "Enough gabbling or we will separate you."

The brothers instantly fell silent. For the nonce there was nothing that they could do. Not solve the puzzle that festered uneasily in their breasts, nor change what fate was about to bring.

They rode and let the sad, spare beauty of the land file past, as the afternoon light fell down.

.

~~~000~~~

.

"There you are, my lady. 'Tis not right that you are last to settle, but I expect it can't be helped."

Éowyn hid a smile as she accepted the long sleep shirt from Laliane, pulled it down over her head and climbed up onto her parents' massive bed.

The grand carved oak headboard felt strange at her back but comforting at once; as familiar as the green leaves and knots broidered on the coverlet. And the tut-tutting from her old nurse. _She_ would have been happy with her childhood bed, but a queen must use the manor's largest room

"I am grateful, Lal, to simply be still at last." She watched as an oil lamp was lit and the wick turned down low. The lack of sweeping in the hearth was fretted over, as was the meagreness of their meal. The habitual litany was, at times, a little tiresome, but came from a kindly heart.

"Now mind you get straight to sleep."

"I will," she promised to a knarled, arthritic finger that wagged sharply. "And thank you. Take some rest yourself," she added, for Laliane and her husband had worked from dusk to near mid-night to open up the house, make Aldburg's white sheeted spaces suitable for its impromptu visitors.

Queen or no, Éowyn was not minded to complain at clean sheets and pillows instead of hard ground and bedrolls.

She smothered a massive yawn. "Will you wake me when the Marshal comes in?"

The older woman bobbed a curtsey. "Yes, my lady. But even if it is late?" The grey smudges below Éowyn's eyes obviously gave away her day: its every waking minute had been swarmed by decisions thick as midges.

"Even so," she insisted. "Sleep well, Laliane."

"And you, Min Cwēn."

Éowyn sighed in relief once the door clicked shut. It was well past mid-night. A bright summer moon shone across the graceful window seat, illumined the dust upon the sills and strove with the single lamp for cheer. No matter the hour, she meant what she had said. She needed to hear for herself how the evening's ride had gone: Éomer was taking Gondor's soldiers back across Mering's desultorily flowing stream, setting their horses loose and letting the folk of west Anórien find their humbled warriors.

It was the image of them, chastened, tails between their legs, begging for aid to undo their bindings (triple knotted for security) that had carried her through the day.

And the unrelenting fury.

What had possessed Denethor? How could he have ordered such a sortie? She had no doubt it was on his orders: the carefully planned assault was no accidental strike. And so needless and infuriating. To one who had learned to set many griefs away, who had learned to harden her heart and ride past fallow fields with a needed poise, this felt like a particularly pointed insult. The Steward had not bothered to send a messenger to Edoras; not asked first the reason for the new camp.

Did they doubt her judgement? Did they think she had so little sway that the Dun-men would ravage nearby Firien?

Ridiculous. The urge to retaliate was strong; but Men had already been killed and hurt that day for no good purpose that she could see. An ill-considered act could turn an already disastrous situation worse.

Wearily, she forced the Nazguls of worry to flee back to their nests, slipped down below the familiar soft green counterpane and laid her head upon the pillow.

Into the peaceful silence there came a soft knock at the door.

"_Min Cwēn_?"

_Was Liliane back again?_ The temptation to feign sleep was strong—the blazing energy of battle and fierce anger of its aftermath had left in its wake eyes like sandpaper and a leaden ache in her heart- but the knock game again. Louder this time and with the unmistakeable rough tenor of her elder brother.

"Éowyn?"

Éomer! He was home! _And safe_.

Relief showered down through her veins. The dread she felt each time they were apart, the ever-clawing, insistent (and unvoiced) fear he would not come back, blessedly began to ebb.

The knock came again.

"Coming!" Rising, she hastily gathered a thin robe about her shoulders and threw back the bolt.

Her brother slipped in, still clad in his leather armour and with his helm of office below his elbow; He ducked his fair head by way of a hasty bow. "_Min Cwēn._"

"Sit, Second Marshal," she ordered softly, ignoring the flash of his sudden grin. Éomer's new found need to be needlessly formal, to follow royal protocol, at times even when alone, was by turns exasperating and endearing; so unlike her brother of before that she wondered if it was for her benefit or his? Hers most likely. He worried, as did Elfhelm and Erkenbrand, how secure was her seat now that he was back. Eomund's son had never wanted more than Aldburg's softly rolling hills nestled at _Maredharon_'s feet.

It was a reality that some of the Riddermark found hard to understand. Just as they puzzled at the happenstance of a Queen.

He stood, whole and unharmed, only reddened eyes belying his tiredness; scanning their parent's long unused room as if he expected a pukelman to leap out of the gloom. The long glass with its carved roses was still there. The bureau with their mother's silver brushes. A stand that held their father's kine horn pipe. All was correct. And the way it looked fifteen years before.

When he did not speak she prompted once again. "Sit brother. What news?"

When every possible imagined threat had been glared into submission, Éomer lowered his great bulk gingerly to a dainty sprigged armchair and cleared his throat. The helm with its gold stallion for the Crown Prince stayed close at his side.

"The Gondorians have been discovered by the Fuirach and the scouts have just returned. The Ranger that got away will, by the morrow, have passed the Rammas."

That last would smart amongst the Éored-Riders prided themselves on speed- and that a poorly-trained, slight gelding of Gondor would take them by surprise was sobering.

"The sooner the Steward learns of his mistake, the longer he will rue his folly," she said placatingly, wondering if in different times it would have been better done to keep all the treacherous company. But the Eastfold still bent under the strain of too few able folk. There was barely provision to spare between Firien's old oaks and Aldburg for the Éored- let alone an extra troop—hunger stalked the people behind the pestilence. She would not take food out of their mouths. Their old home was spare, but more welcome than the empty, ghostly barracks of the night before.

Halifirien had fared worse than most. It was why Dun-men came to set up a watch. Orcs, of Mordor or Isengard, could spill down and despoil the Fold's rich levels all too fast.

Éomer shook his head unhappily. "Perhaps you are correct. Assuming a man so cold and calculating feels anything at all. One Gondorian to two dozen. Freca will be spitting nails. We did not succor them, take a hand freely offered, to see them slaughtered here."

"No," she sighed. "But I am not sure it matters if they fall to the wizard's spawn or Stoninglanders. Dun-men will still dance. Send their spirits to the hills." Éowyn had stood beside their broad, squat captain watching the smoke of the pyre billow into the sky, marvelling once more at the Hillmen's fatalism. It was as if this latest ill was all of a piece with plague and famine and endless war. To be endured. And if possible redressed.

Only by swift argument—and promise of weregild- had summary rough justice been averted. Denethor's youngest knew it too—his pallor below the bloodied dark locks that fell across his brow spoke more eloquently than words. Both brothers' shoulders had sagged in relief when Freca stalked away barking orders for the survivors to begin rebuilding.

The worried whispers and looks they tried to hide made her almost more furious than the attack.

Almost.

That a Gondorian could think one of the Riddermark would let them come to harm!

"Their dead soldier?" she asked, tiredly.

"Safely sent back to his own people for burial."

_Béma's blessed horn_. At one point in the tense aftermath, Freca, indomitable and hard as the rock of his western Hills, had insisted the man was _theirs_. To display as trophy. Éowyn shuddered at the thought of that particular 'tradition'- there was not an act more guaranteed to inflame a conflagration already overfueled. It was a relief indeed to know promises of passage had been kept.

"And Eothain will be well?"

Éomer glowered like a storm cloud at the mention of his second. "His shoulder is separated. The right. He'll not wield a spear til harvest."

That piece of news was ill luck— every young lad with the barest downy cheek had been pressed to fill the Éoreds' many empty saddles. They could not spare one Rider, let alone one as loyal and skilled as Eothain. "That was too near a thing."

Éomer nodded unhappily. "_Gea_. Thank Béma the scout found us below Firienholt."

Thank _Bema_. And Nienna and every _Valar_ who watched Arda's shores_. _The result could have been so much worse. _"_Why did they not simply send a messenger to Edoras?" she asked, voicing the question that irritated like a burr. "Did they think us so blind we would not notice an incursion?"

"Hardly. Denethor is never ill informed—his spies are like spiders—in every nook and cranny, seen or not."

"And tolerated for the mutual benefit they brought," she finished. "But now? Too long we of the Mark have been focused west and northward. East must be looked to, too. Did you get any crumbs of knowledge from the Captain-General?"

The blond name shook. "Nothing useful. The prisoners have lost their tongues. Even the younger, which I gather is an anomaly." A wry amusement glimmered in Éomer's blood-shoot eyes. "I defer to you."

It took no great insight to guess the why. "You yelled?"

Éomer grinned wide. "Yes. We had a pointless exchange of insults and it was extremely satisfying. Though in the end, not civil questioning nor outright threat made any difference. You are welcome to try, sister dear. Perhaps your terrifying icy glare will induce them to reconsider."

Éowyn snorted. "I hardly doubt it." _Icy?_ She supposed that fit with what she had become. _ Gicel-_snow the people called her—proud of her cool nerves in crisis; honed through the first terrifying weeks, and now months of recovery. She shivered a little at the memory, wrapping arms about herself. The eve was unseasonably cool for high summer and no fire burned in the grate. Where once Aldburg had a dozen household staff, now there were two. A situation Éomer should redress. But there was no time. Before they could have hired a man to oversee, but now there were none to be had.

She sighed softly, fingering the knotwork on the spread. _Before_. The word they all understood at once meant one thing now: before the plague. Before months of terror, and endless anguish, and toil that would never end.

"Do you think they'd still keep the birds?" she asked suddenly.

"For messages?" Éomer sat up straighter with a puzzled frown. "I know not. You wish to send to Elfhelm?"

"No, to Minas Tirith."

"God's blood, why?!" Éomer's cheeks flushed red with fury. "Let them stew in their anxiety. They deserve it after what they have done."

Perhaps, but her heart only pictured a small, proud face; a picture sent in a Yule greeting to Théodred. "Boromir has a young son. Of Leoden's age. I would not have him waiting, terrified, thinking his father lost."

Éomer's eyes darkened as understanding dawned. He darted up, reached to clasp her chill fingers in his own, leaning in to kiss her brow. "Yes, of course. I am so sorry."

She nodded, throat closed up with regret. Leoden had been like her own; a sunny, boisterous boy with wheat-gold hair and his mother's silver eyes. Losing him, his bright ways and eager energy, was a hurt that never left.

The mattress dipped as Éomer sat down beside; not speaking, silently stroking a callused thumb across her palm. She knew he felt such guilt. That _he_ had not been there. That his own illness had caused her so much pain. The letter from Dol Amroth's official scribe had gone far wrong-an error of translation, regretting to announce he had 'succumbed' to the plague; arriving hard on the heels of Lothíriel's note that he was taken ill. Months she thought him lost, walked the Road to their fathers' halls; and then to find that he was alive and hale in Dol Amroth, the shock had been nigh as monumental.

The sharpest thing in all that year had been carving his simple memorial; the sweetest had been sight of him, pardoned by her edict, riding in.

Sometimes she wondered how her hair was not now also all of white.

"Éowyn?"

It was not the tenth or even twentieth time they had sat so: he trying to apologize, and she taking strength from love he had to give. "No. Do not say it, brother. Twas not your fault." She shook her head, dabbed her eyes upon her sleeve and pulled away, letting Éomer also compose himself.

He roughly cleared his throat. "Word of the defeat will fly on eagle wings. I do not see how we can keep this from the folk."

"True. Another ill wind from this mess. Those that feel vulnerable already will be more so, thinking an ally gone. Elfhelm and Grimbold must spread the word. That this is a mistake for which Gondor will pay weregild in full."

Éomer nodded. "If I have to raid their treasury myself."

"Brother, _Béma_, no."

His lips twitched at her exasperated tone. "_Gea_, _Min Cwēn_."

She rolled her eyes and shoved him only a little hard. "Go. Seek your bed and ready the Éored to ride in the first hour after dawn."

He smiled, stood and retrieved his helm, stretched a kink from long hours in the saddle out of his back. Both of them needed sleep. The dawn and more problems were just hours away.

Taking his leave, he walked softly on the faded carpet, avoiding stepping on the bluebirds just as they had done as little ones.

It made her smile and shake her head just as he knew it would. Both of them needed some levity to end this putrid troll of a day, but then, by the door, he paused, giving in to the question that troubled both of them.

"Can we trust Gondor anymore?"

That I do not know," admitted Éowyn and her face in the clear moonlight was sad, and hard, and pale.

.

~~~000~~~

The next morning, Éomer's words were much on Éowyn's mind as she bid farewell to Laliane and Gerun, set Windfola on the road to Edoras and lead the riders out of Aldburg's high stone gates.

The sun was shy but the day was fair: it flirted with them from behind high scudding cloud while the warm wind blithely bent the grasses and the purple sage that flowered along the dry roadbed. A perfect day for travelling-they would reach the Golden Hall by the time Anor had climbed to its zenith—but it was no day for her to just ride and enjoy clear air and birdsong.

Edoras would bring many more decisions. And for those she needed much more knowledge than she had.

Silently she eased Windfola's reins and let the stallion drop back beside the prisoners. "Captain-General. Captain."

"Your highness," the sons of Gondor's Steward chimed in courteous surprise. She acknowledged their stiff half bows with the briefest of bare nods.

"I would speak with you now. About what has happened and what shall be."

A quick look passed between them both and the younger spurred his grey to join the Riders just afore. In his wake, Boromir glanced askance at the flint-eyed Riders who gathered close. They were a half length away. Close enough to gut him should he make a move toward their queen. Far enough that they could judiciously pretend they heard nothing that was said.

No chance of breaking out. And no chance of avoiding her scrutiny.

How to start? Gently. To put her captive at his ease. "Your brother is doing well?" Éowyn asked, pointing to the green mottled cloak in front of them, just out of earshot.

Boromir's eyes widened in surprise. "Tolerably. He is stubbornly ignoring the wound, but it is pestering him. I expect he needs a healer."

"He looks pale for one spends much time out of doors," she noted. "The wound is not festering?"

"Not as of last night."

Éowyn, struck by the image of Éomer teasing them about damaged goods devaluing their worth, bit back a rueful smile. "I will have my physician see him when we reach Edoras."

"Thank you. I would be grateful." Boromir sighed and then awkwardly cleared his throat. "Lady, it has been three years since we last spoke. I am sorrowed for your loss."

The simple courtesy was unexpected. "I thank you," she said, astonished and no little touched, doing her best to return in kind. "My Uncle and my cousin considered you a great friend. My loss is yours as well."

Dark locks waved as Boromir gave a nod, but then the bold, high-hearted soldier famous for his booming voice said no more. His lips were firmly clamped shut and his eyes were on the road; sitting solid as a mountain in the saddle, jaw set and hands clasped where they rested bound in his lap.

Only the faint twitching of his thumbs gave away a certain restlessness.

_So that is how it is to be_. Polite words of greeting were to be exchanged but nothing of any substance. "We shall reach Edoras this eve. I presume you know how to write? Once we are at the hall, I would have you send a message in your own hand."

_To let there be no doubt_. She watched this knowledge curdle in his stomach. Gondor's men held captives now and then, but they themselves? It was an unfamiliar situation.

Bowing to another's will by force was humbling. "And then? What will you do?"

Éowyn did not pretend to mistake his meaning. It made her hackles rise. What did he think? That she would turn him out near Nan Curunír to be found by Isengard? "Decide," she said curtly. "_We_ are not the barbarians here. You and your men have committed a crime that cannot go unpunished. But," she paused for effect, "you will not be mistreated. I have sent word to Minas Tirith that you and your brother are mostly well," she added coolly. "It should arrive before your men."

A muscle jumped high his cheek. It was dirty, still caked with grime from the day before and a streak of rust-coloured blood. "Again, I am grateful."

"You could show it by explaining why Gondor, our sworn ally, attacked the Riddermark."

There was a stubborn silence. Blast. It was predictable but still unhelpful.

It appeared she would have to goad him into divulging more. "Tell me, what reason could Denethor have for trespassing on our sovereignty? In his dotage he has decided to have the old borders of Calenardhon restored? Your brother's Rangers suddenly mistook our fens for Sunlending's woods?

"Sunlending?"

"Anórien. I forget it is your brother who is skilled in geography. Has his vaunted memory failed? This jaunt was an accident? You tripped and fell into a skirmish. With eighty men and scouts?"

Boromir flushed pink to the tips of his ears, burning at her sarcasm. "You know that that is not the case."

"Then do enlighten me," sighed Éowyn. "I refuse to believe this is simply a misunderstanding. But I cannot discern what would lead Gondor to violate Rohan this way. Would Denethor accept my Riders without leave in Firien?" _Of course not_, but the question raised no response. She went on. "Did all in Gondor support this maddness? Does Prince Imrahil know of this folly? Surely, he would have put a stop to it. Or tried. Honour flows through him like lifeblood in his veins."

The implication- that Boromir had squandered the virtue he was famous for—worked. And made him briefly grind his teeth. "Dunlendings are not our allies."

"But they are ours. I believe you spoke with my brother about this?"

"Spoke." He snorted. "We traded pleasantries."

_Thankfully it wasn't blows_. "Then you know that Freca's company was there by our leave. Why did the Steward not first send to Edoras?"

Silence again. Éowyn looked up and studied the stony gaze with care. There was something there, some knowledge darting like a silver fish just out of reach, but she could not discern its shape. "Once more, I ask why would Gondor attack Freca's company?"

"You have allowed the Enemy to set up on our border."

_The Enemy?_ Finally they were getting somewhere. "The Dunlendings? In these hours they love Orcs even less than we of the Mark. Isengard harries us all, has spitted their women and children on their pikes, has razed their villages and woods."

His eyes grew guarded. "That has yet to be ascertained."

Ascertained?! How dare he! Fury made Éowyn briefly lose her voice. And patience.

They were already at the ford between Sherbourne's low muddy banks. Before them stretched the green plain of Harrowdale and in the distance the green hill and mighty wall and fence of Edoras. And at its feet, athwart the winding trail before the gate-the white mounds of her forefathers arrayed in _simbelmynë. _ The white starflowers of everlasting memory shone clearly against the loam.

She jerked her chin toward three new laid barrows that had yet to gain their full white cloaks. "Would you have mistrusted my cousin? Attacked his patrimony?"

Boromir blanched pale as the moonstone at his throat. "He was my friend."

"Then in his memory explain why we are at this pass!" she exploded.

The knuckles of his fingers clenched white. "I cannot."

Béma save them. No explanation and obviously some other point that was being kept. She did not need to be a wizard to see he was keeping something back, but what it could be she had no clue. The lack of trust was galling. Especially from a fellow warrior who'd once called Theodred 'brother'. "Your words and deeds spit on the oaths that you both made."

They rode on in a mutual angry silence, the troop splashing noisily across the ford and beginning the approach to city's gate. Already the guards' bright mail shone in the flatness of the light, the wide pennants with their faded verdant ground and proud but shredded steeds flapped in a rising wind.

Éowyn had thought she would get no more out of the Steward's son; was surprised when a quiet question crossed his lips.

"Why are the flags in such a poor state?" asked Boromir, plainly troubled. "They are ragged and torn. Why do the people not change them out for new?"

She looked up in surprise. The flags rippled where their edges frayed; the ends fluttering like a bird's wings in moult. The sight was simply a part of their new world. Like mounds and marker 'horns' at every village.

"Ragged? We would say solemn. Just as their hearts, Boromir of Gondor. In the Riddermark when a house is in mourning they do not change their flag for a full year. But there too many for too many houses and too many lost. They will keep them up until their hearts tell them to move on."

"And the ribbons?" This last, quietly, came from his younger brother. Faramir had dropped back, drawn abreast silently, perhaps sensing a change of mood; perhaps hearing her raised voice.

She found in his clear grey gaze nothing but grave concern and so pointed to Windfola's tack. Three ribbons adorned his headstall. Mor's had two. A lucky few had one. "White is the colour of mourning. We wear no armbands but each Rider keeps a white ribbon on his tack. One for each soul they ride for. It is a way to honour them when we are afield."

Faramir nodded slowly. "And you do not wear the royal green, but white. And gold. To honour those you lost." He fell silent for a moment, looking away above the golden roof of Meduseld to Starkhorn's sparkling slopes, but then a light came to his eyes. "_Gicel_. Snow. That is what the people called you is it not? White and snow. For the white you wear and the ribbons for memory."

Éowyn, struck as if by a bolt, sat straighter. Proud. Head high. But heart breaking at this simple truth.

That he was right, and respectful with it, did not lesson the fierceness of the hurt.

"I am their Queen. Their White Lady. I mourn for them all."

She spurred Windfola onward to the gold gates below the sound of ringing horns.

.

* * *

Yay.. an update. Trying to make them more regular. Thank you so much to all those who commented and followed and favourited. It really makes this a delight...

Unbetad with Anna travelling and Wheelrider kicking ass so will probably attack typos later this week.

Happy Summer everyone!


	4. Irritations

After a night of formless shifting dreams, Faramir swam up out of a sluggish sleep to the sounds of a new day.

Beyond the thick glass of the windowpane the wind was sighing through the lazily swaying trees and the bright whistle of a robin called 'cheer up, cheer up', horses winnyed and boots stamped on solid stone. Inside, beyond the bedcurtains that encircled his dark cocoon, the light, staccato tap of heels and rustle of heavy skirts said the household was already up. Lindel would be coming to rouse him late again. He set an elbow to push up against the mattress, about to ask their housekeeper what time it was, when a sharp tug of rough linen against bruised, torn flesh jolted him back to reality.

The past two days were not a dream. A spear tip had tried to pierce him through and this was not the Steward's palace: the curtains were woven of wool not silk, the placket on his rumpled nightshirt was embroidered with running stags.

He was in Edoras, and he and Boromir were both Rohan's prisoners.

"Where is my brother?" he asked in Westron, sitting up more gingerly and running a hand through sleep-tousled hair.

The bedcurtains sprung back to reveal a tall, thin woman all in white and cream. Her face was pretty but a little haggard, gaunt about the cheekbones and lined with age. A shock of bright white hair peeked below her cotton headrail.

At first he took her for a maidservant, but then a pair of smooth small hands with perfectly trimmed nails took up the ties to keep the curtains drawn.

"You are awake!" the woman declared, once the climbing sun of mid-morning spilled across the coverlet. "Your timing is good. Master Omrud will be here soon. You have just enough to spare to breakfast and then change."

He had not the slightest idea who this Omrud was, but his stomach grumbled greedily as a wooden tray placed gently across his lap. Oatmeal with cream and honey and a welcome mug of cider that would chase away the lingering sour dryness of pain and worry. "Thank you," he said politely. He did not remember much of the night beyond sagging against Boromir once he'd been helped him down, but the spicy smell of yarrow lingered on bandages that were mercifully no longer soaked right through. Someone—this woman?—had tended his wound the night before.

He took a cautious bite of the cooling cereal and watched his nurse bustle efficiently about the space. She swept the day-old rushes away, straightened the coverlet and filled the ewer with fresh water. The room was spartan but well appointed: the blankets and furnishings were soft and trimmed in embroidered knotwork, the porcelain was painted, and a set of silver brushes lay on a carven chest. His hosts seemed to be treating him more like an honoured guest than prisoner. His attendant was most certainly noblewoman: her kirtle was fine lawn, her braided belt held a golden buckle and her head rail was pinned by a silver fillet.

Most oddly, she also looked awfully familiar.

"My brother is also under guard?" he asked around a final, largeish mouthful.

"Yes, and as well cared for as you, if not in so comfortable a state." The finished tray was replaced with a wetted cloth for washing. He scrubbed face and neck and hands while the pillows were rearranged. "I understand he is a handful. Exactly as I would expect."

The sense of familiarity tugged harder. "My lady?"

A faint smile appeared below wide grey eyes. "Annwn will suffice, my cousin."

_Cousin?!_

_Valar_, the belt, the fine clothes, the fillet! This was Annwn! Théodred's widowed princess.

"Annwn!.. I…" With a shock Faramir realized he hardly recognized the carefree, exuberant girl that he knew. The youngest of his Aunt Ivriniel's sprawling brood had been fine and elegant, with a mischievous smile and waterfall of ink-dark hair. He looked again. Beyond the Rohirric smock and kirtle and hair streaked all of white, her face was lined with care not age; the grey eyes fringed with sable lashes were wide and pale as mist upon the sea.

His grandfather Adrahil's eyes. The ones he and his mother also shared.

"You did not recognize me right away?" Annwn's mouth quirked wryly. "We have not seen each in more than a decade, Faramir, You missed the wedding."

"With chicken pox." He grimaced, remembering that particularly pointed torture; quarantined in the Houses while Boromir and Father and most of their Dol Amroth family spent a glorious few weeks in Edoras feting the joining of two royal houses. She had been a maid of seventeen, poised and with her mother's eternal confidence—the perfect bride for the heir of a fiercely proud and boisterous people.

How much his cousin had changed. How much she had endured. The shock of loss that had grieved her hair also lent her the look of one much older than her six and twenty years.

"I am so very sor.." he began, but Annwn quickly raised up her hand, held herself carefully still, like an ancient china cup, brittle and afraid to break.

"Please. Don't," she said, shaking her head sorrowfully, "else I'll not be able to complete my chores this morning for weeping. Your letters have been a balm and said enough."

His letters. All of them, all the sprawling extended Dol Amroth line had done their best to keep up correspondence: he on patrol, hunched over a barrel with a stub of burning candle; Boromir from Osgiliath's vine choked stones. Faramir bit his lip, aching for the tears that now glistened unshed on her dark eyelashes. It was so hard. Her mother and father wished for her to return to Belfalas' sunny shores but Annwn would not hear of it: her love and her boy were here, barrowed together in the line of Kings. She could not bear to be parted more.

That she had been yet in Rohan had been one of his arguments against his father's ill-fated sortie.

"Our presence, our misunderstanding," he added awkwardly, "does not add to your grief?"

"Nay." She pulled back a sleeve to reveal a tanned arm that once would have been milk fair. "I am now truly a Rohirrim, even to the colour of my skin. Out of doors in high sun each and every day; as comfortable ahorseback as on my own two feet. The people would not doubt. But," her mouth set a line, "I expect there is reason for what you have done, however mistaken it appears. Uncle does nothing without purpose."

True, but now it was his turn to be stiff. Annwn was family. He could trust her implicitly but what he knew was for not just any ears. And not without some risk. He would never put her in jeopardy. "That will be clear in time," he answered noncommittally, and Annwn, always quick, knew a prudent change of topic when she heard it.

"On to your day, then. Omrud will be here presently. I wager you'll not be allowed up this day or next, so a clean night shirt will suffice."

She took another embroidered shirt, this one grey, from a low bench at the bed's foot and held it out while he shrugged out of the other. It was softer against his side and only slightly too big about the shoulders. Éomer's perhaps, not Théodred's, he thought, but then had to tamp down a laugh.

The former, who'd glowered each time their gazes met, would not be best pleased to learn his adversary was lounging in his wardrobe.

Just as he finished pulling the cotton down over his head when a short, swarthy man with dark goatee and shining pate appeared as if by magic.

"You are Southron!" Faramir exclaimed and the healer gave a broad, almost infectious grin.

"Indeed! I see your eyes are quite unaffected. A most propitious sign." The little man bowed respectfully. "I am Omrud, her Majesty's physician, late of Sarakan. The Queen tells me, Captain, that you have been impersonating a pin cushion. I do not recommend this but have fortunately something to mitigate its more deleterious effects." He brandished a glass jar of salve. "May I examine your decoration?"

"Please," Faramir held still while the wound was uncovered and probed with fingers and expert eyes and nose. Sarakan was a name he knew. The site of a great library from before the Faithful's flight from Numenor, it rivaled even Minas Tirith's sprawling archive in some subjects. Medicine was just one, but justly one of its most famous. "May I ask," he said, clenching his teeth as the thick ointment stung, "how did you come to be here?"

"Ah. Sit forward please." A pair of black eyes glinted. "Far more prosaically than you, young man. When the great sickness first struck, King Théoden, Mandos grant him rest, called for more healers to help and I just happened to be at loose ends."

"Loose ends?"

"Turned out," offered Annwn quickly, handing the Master a fresh length of bandage.

Omrud met her grin. "The Princess has the right of it. The Serpent's sixth wife was bored and I, perhaps a trifle ill-advisedly, sought to relieve her of her 'affliction'." He shrugged and reached to wind the linen round. "I had to leave, else I suffered your same fate."

Faramir could not help himself: he chuckled (carefully, in view of his side) at the improbable image of this slightly portly man above his station and running from fierce curved swords. Why the Master was a delight! Sly. Witty. And quite evidently skilled. The salve was already easing his pain and the fresh dressing was wound with only a modicum of fuss.

"There." Omrud stepped back, slipped his medicament into a pocket of his voluminous blue robe and clasped his large hands together. "Now. The field stitches were sufficient in a rush, your man whomever he is, has had no little practice, but riding strained them. You have lost more blood than I should like. I took the liberty of adding a few more in what I fancy is a pleasing pattern." He turned and placed a hand on Annwn's arm. "Beef tea and as much fluid as he will take. Light meals, but above all, rest. For at least a week."

Faramir groaned. Days abed and he without his pack? "Is that really necessary?"

Omrud inclined his head. "Essential. Until you become so bored that you will gladly help the poor maids who are mending socks."

That sounded much like torture; his own mended on patrol looked more like basketweave. "Can you prescribe a book or a chess set as essential to my recovery? Or better yet a visit with my brother?"

Omrud and Annwn exchanged a look but the Southron chuckled low. "Cheeky. The library here is thin. How are you on Wulfred's treatise on hoof poulticing? Or Cardol's on crop rotation?"

"He can have my Merdonel," Annwn offered quickly.

"And some parchment and a quill?" Omrud added. "Your hands yet work and another messenger is set to depart midday. Your Lord father will be worrying about you."

"Perhaps."

Faramir frowned as Annwn looked the other way. It was no secret in the family that Denethor was oft impatient with his younger son—even dismissive at times when they crossed purposes-but Omrud mistook his hesitation. "Then can Annwn scribe? Or I can loan you my own ivory men?"

He let out a sigh. It was a kindly offer and Merdonel's poetry was lovely- he could lose himself in the lush imagery of the south-but what he really wanted was Boromir. Not just to see that he was well, but to plan what they must do.

There were one too many puzzles still to worry and he could not solve them, reading all day in bed.

"Thank you Master for your efforts but what I really wish for most is help from you to spring my brother."

"I see." Omrud rubbed thoughtfully at his beard. "Your brother is the one who foolishly tried to block a charging warhorse with nothing but his shoulder?" Faramir nodded eagerly. "I go to look in on him presently. I make no promises, but it will be my pleasure to try to be of help. Captain." The Haradim bowed, hand over heart, and then he and his flowing robes swept out.

Annwn shook her head, helped Faramir resettle comfortably against the pillows and took up the tray with its detritus.

She looked as bemused as he. Whatever else, the physician's visits promised to be diverting.

~~~000~~~

Omrud's efforts with Queen Éowyn did not bear fruit at once. Three days passed. At first Faramir spent them abed: he was, in truth fatigued and listless, but as his energy improved, he was allowed to sit a chair beside the wide window that let out over the countryside. The view- Harrowdale's summer cloak of green leading up to Starkhorn's majestic sparkling face— was breathtaking, but sadly could not allay the fact that he was a prisoner. The lock, which he'd tried, was bolted on the outside. He was confined to the small room with no visitors except for the little Southron or those who brought his meals. Faramir was forced to idly wait.

It was maddening. The irony was not lost on him that in another situation he would have relished the time alone. The visits by Omrud became more and more briefly entertaining. A succession of housemaids delivered his meals and all were strictly correct, polite even, but pulled into conversation reluctantly as he tried his thin Rohirric vocabulary. They would smile and nod, say 'yes, my Lord", or 'no, my Lord" and quickly scuttle out, on to other pressing chores. There was clearly no time for idle chit chat.

Sometimes he overheard muttered words as the sentry guards changed post. "Time" figured prominently, and "late" and "quick". Annwn, who at least in theory might be more at leisure, seemed most pressed. She would appear, bring bandages or tonics, enquire as to his pain, and only sometimes briefly flop down on the wide window seat, mopping her brow as tired eyes strayed to the door.

"Surely no one begrudges you a rest?" he wondered aloud once, when she looked particularly careworn.

"It is not that, just…" her clear grey gaze went to the door, "there is always too much work to be done and those who watch zealously. Determined that the pie be divided evenly."

"Who?" he asked, but she wouldn't say and in the days thereafter he was left more to himself, wondering when the formal embassy from Gondor would arrive. He had no doubt that Mablung had made it out before Éowyn 's message. Celle was swift and sure and they both knew how to slip through forest unseen. The ransom request would be paid; soon he hoped, for itt should not tax too greatly Gondor's coffers and the council, however reluctantly some had agreed to the attack, would be anxious to have their Captain-General back. Ithilien, long abandoned but for the secret refuges, was only one point of need amongst many. Osgiliath was where the Enemy's hammer would surely fall and Boromir was needed there the most.

Faramir tried not to fret. If his own experience was any guide, his brother would be well cared for, even if some Riders, knowing the Steward's heir from manoeuvers with Théodred, were inclined to take things personally. It would just be better if he could see so for himself. And air the anxious thoughts that circled round like vultures.

He forced himself to settle back and rest, flip through the worn pages of Merdonel's epic odes, put off the temptation of futilely pacing the bright, rich carpet, when suddenly a deep booming voice and the rattling of iron could be heard from the corridor.

"Boromir!"

Omrud threw wide the oaken door and paraded his brother in. "Captain, what a surprise to find you unoccupied," the Southron announced with a wink, voice carrying to the guards who stood curiously in the doorway. "I am exercising Lord Boromir's legs. We must ensure they continue to hold up his battered shoulder. The stairs from the dungeon floor are a helpful addition."

Faramir could not contain his joy: he rose and closed the distance between them, wincing slightly as he was pulled into an exuberant hug. Boromir, a sphaleritic bloom of bruising receding on his cheek and hands and feet loosely bound by chain, was upright and well, and carrying himself with only a slight hunch.

He clasped Faramir's forearm warmly before giving him an affectionate and gentle cuff. "You stubborn, stupid git! Why didn't you say something sooner?"

Omrud eyebrows flew up. "Gentlemen! Gentleman! If this is an example of how brethren greet each other in Gondor I am fortunate to have skipped that kingdom."

Faramir flushed and Boromir grinned, unabashed at his protectiveness. His brother had been his protector, mother and commander for so long, all the roles tended to blur into one.

"It did not feel so bad at first," he explained sheepishly, but Boromir rolled his eyes.

"Thank the _Valar_ one of us is paying attention to your welfare. How _are_ you?"

"Well. No, honestly. I am receiving excellent care."

Omrud smiled at the compliment. "He was not riven, merely punctured. Nothing I have not seen before when the Wind Lord's children will play their games."

Boromir snorted, shaking his head. "All this, so you can be in a feather bed and not down below with me, rats chewing on your toe."

As if he had planned to take a spear. "There are rats?"

"Not really."

Faramir, relieved, tweaked the length of chain. "You sound like the Tower ghost. Feet and wrists bound. The guards are not taking any chances."

"My reputation precedes me. With you they know a daisy chain would work!"

"Hah!" Faramir did his best to look offended. "At least _I _am able to wash and shave. Brother, what is that upon your face? Carrion?"

Boromir scratched at the sparse expanse of black that had begun to sprout, all uneven and yet to fill in the hollows of his cheekbones. It looked more like tufts of grass in spring than beard. "Point to you, little one. Perhaps I should bring a new fashion home."

"Not if Merelan has any say. She'll take up the strop herself!"

With that, the two fell over each other, laughing, quite unable to speak sensibly for the nonce. _Valar_ but it felt good. The strain of the past week had begun to weigh heavily and here was his beloved brother, sarcasm fully intact. Boromir was the one person who could pierce the careful mask Faramir habitually wore; make him laugh- at himself and everything-when the world seemed too serious.

Bless Omrud for bringing them together. The Southron had turned away, was giving them some privacy by minutely inspecting the fireplace's carved mantlepiece.

Faramir sat back on the bed, motioned to Boromir to take a chair, had just begun to tell him about Annwn when a grim-faced guard rapped spear against the door.

"Master. It is time. By order of the Marshal."

Blast. There was no choice. Their happy respite had been all too short. Boromir slowly rose, leaned down to plant a kiss upon his brow. "Be well," he said softly, and reluctantly turned to go.

"I will." Faramir looked up to Omrud. The forlorn knot of anxiety that had settled in his chest had eased and for that he was truly grateful. "Thank you, Master."

The healer inclined his dark head and with a, "Come ghost. Let me march you back to your lair," ushered his charge back to his lower haunt.

~~~000~~~

In the days thereafter Faramir tried to take their separation with as good a grace as he could. Each day Boromir would be taken for a short 'walk' and Omrud would stay, sometimes to check his wound, sometimes to chat. In between, during the long drawn out minutes of boredom and lassitude, Faramir began to focus on what he could learn. He would sit at the window or closer to the door, ears attuned for snippets of conversation that drifted on the summer breeze. Most of it was routine: the watch changing and servants passing the time of day, but on one particular morning, his seventh in captivity, there were shouts and imprecations, a great clatter of swords and hooves, and though he asked who or what had been attacked and where, he got no answer. The guards shook their heads; implacable and stony-faced.

He needed more knowledge than he had. And every minute together that he and Boromir had they were watched like fledglings with a hawk.

It was time to take a risk.

"Master, may we have a private moment?" Faramir asked boldly, when next Omrud arrived with his clanking patient. Boromir's eyes widened: neither of them could be sure how the little man would react, he was on the surface supportive, but there could be limits to his tact.

The Southron's mouth quirked wryly. "You wish to abuse each other freely in your mother tongue?"

"Yes!" laughed Faramir.

"Excellent," said Omrud. "I approve. It will be most theraputic."

He bowed and slipped out through the door where they could hear him loudly enquire after the nearest guard's newborn 'perfect princess'. Both brothers waited with baited breath. The Rider frowned, clasped his spear a little tighter but at last obligingly began to speak.

Faramir sighed in relief. Boromir thoughtfully watching the blue robes and silver mail bent together. "What do you suppose his purpose is?" he asked in soft Sindarin.

"Private amusement?" The world, to the Southron, seemed to be an endless source of levity.

"I am not sure." Boromir dropped down onto the bed beside his brother. "But whatever it is, I appreciate his tact."

"As do I." Faramir went straight to the matter on both their minds. "How long until we have news? A week?"

Boromir shook his head. "Nay, not so long. Three days at most. The messenger will have already arrived with the demand for terms. Father will undoubtedly keep the council's puny minds focused on the task."

"Then for the wains to come?"

"That depends on how many are needed. I might take a wagonload, but you, my brother, are certainly priceless."

Faramir's mouth quirked. "Hardly. It will be the other way around. Father will be in haste to have you back in Minas Tirith." He knew their wait should not be long, but as much as he appreciated Boromir's efforts to cheer him up, a part of him was not looking forward to the return. The debriefing with their father would not be a pleasant one. Their goal of removing the western threat had failed. Gondor was no closer to the truth.

He shoulders sagged.

"What troubles you?" asked Boromir, placing a hand upon his shoulder, as always attuned to his mood.

"This is a puzzle with too many missing pieces."

"That is so. And we can hardly find more cooped up in here. But at least, though Éomer be incandescently furious with what we have done, is clear they do not mean to send us to Isengard."

_Thank the One_, Faramir thought, privately to himself, for it did not do to speak His name aloud. "Éowyn did not lie. Her word is true. Yet.."

Boromir's eyes narrowed. "Go on."

"They are openly in league with their former enemies. It is scarce a hundred years since Folcwine drove the Dunlendings back into the Ered Nimrais. Why trust with them now? After so much strife."

Boromir spread his hands. ""I know not. And I defer to you who has history ink-stained on your fingertips. But those who guard me are not entirely pleased with the situation. They do not much like Bethoc, the captain of the Dun-Men, though they willingly accept his help."

Faramir shook his head. "No, I mean why would the Dunlendings help the Rohirrim? They have been ever wary of us, were driven by the Éothéod from lands they saw as theirs. They have no reason to help Rohan."

Boromir raised a brow. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend?"

"Perhaps."

Faramir, restless with a worry he could assuage, rose and went to stand at the window, looking out onto the greensward.

The guard at Meduseld's lower step was changing. The Riders who stepped up in their bright mail and helms towered above the swart Dunlendings, as trees above young saplings. What enemy? What common foe could they have?

"I wish I knew some Dunlendish."

"Too late for that my brother. They could be speaking of roasting goats for all I know. Except…"

Faramir instantly turned around. "What?"

"I am thinking."

"No wonder you look so pained."

Boromir, for once, waved away the quip. "Why would the Dunlendings need protection? I can think of only one reason. Saruman is the greatest threat we recognize west of the Entwash. He has, for too long now, been unopposed, gathering material and might. Théodred was convinced of the rumour he took Dun-women to breed half-Orcs."

Faramir looked shocked, shuddering at the thought. "Would he be so cruelly vile to those who support him?"

"If he saw them as expendable he might. No longer as Men but breeding stock." Boromir uncomfortably rolled his shoulder. "Saruman needs fresh armies. Théodred's few advances have cost him too many troops."

It fit. With the trophies on the stockade wall and Rohan's need for allies. But why then had they not sent to Minas Tirith? Denethor would have helped, or he assumed he would, but that thought again made Faramir uneasy.

If what they thought was true, their Father was more than simply mistaken about Rohan's motives, he was flat out wrong.

And therein lay another worry.

"What of the extra gold?"

His brother shushed him quickly. "Do not speak of it so clear!"

Faramir swiftly looked back across his shoulder to the half open door. Omrud and the guard stood just beyond. If they could hear the Southron's merry voice raised in some jest prying ears might catch too much.

With one arm to his sore side, he went to the bed, loosened the ties and pulled the bedcurtain drapes closed with the other. The fabric would muffle at least a little of the sound. Boromir hurriedly joined with other ties and when they were blocked by this simple barrier, he whispered hurriedly, "The Tower Stone does not lie. It is only we who mistake what it reveals."

And therein lay why using it was grasping more blade than hilt. "Then it is treachery."

"Yes," Boromir nodded sharply. "It has to be. But who? It can be no scullery maid—they need access to the treasury. One of the Marshals?"

"Erkenbrand? Elfhelm? Éomer?!" Faramir laughed. The thought of any of them as traitors was ludicrous. All were loyal to their Queen. ""You can't be serious? Her own brother? You've taken the measure of the man. As has uncle. 'Honest as the day is long' were his words."

"Agreed." Boromir's eyes grew dark. "But someone is taking advantage of their short handedness."

Someone with the trust of the Queen and her inner circle. "We have to tell Éowyn," Faramir insisted. "There could be little time left."

"How? By revealing the secret of the stone? We cannot. And there is…."

Both started as there came a loud knocking on door.

"Captain, you said you wished to play. I am ready to start the battle now!"

Omrud stood on the threshold holding a small board filled with counters of black and white, handily blocking the guard's clear view. Their time was up.

Reluctantly Faramir stepped from the shadows and into the centre of the room. "Thank you Master," he answered in Westron. "I should be happy to sit down now."

This was not a feint. He was tired, and his side ached, and his head hurt with all the implications flying darkly round. Boromir, gaze still storm dark and equally unsettled, paced slowly to the door, did not resist as the guard reached for his arm.

"Good day Captain-General," said Omrud pleasantly, "I shall be down to see you soon."

"I don't doubt it," replied Boromir quietly and flashed a half-hearted grin. It did not reach his eyes. "It might be rather sooner than you expect. My brother is known to massacre any handy victim."

~~~000~~~

A candlemark later it transpired that he was not wrong. Omrud appeared outside Boromir's cell, shrugging his shoulders and quite unruffled to have been so trounced. He sat on the stone chamber's stool, perfunctorily inspecting the stiffened shoulder's range of motion and muttering unhappily. The dungeon, for all it was below the hall and too not damp or very dark-Minas Tirith's catacombs were far more ancient and unpleasant—was small, and days sitting idle or bearing the chain's weight were not helpful to the patient.

"Hardulf!"

The lugubrious jailor appeared. "Yes, Master?"

"My charge, I fear, could be getting worse. I would like you to free his arm and then I shall take him outside."

"Outside?"

"Yes, outside. He needs air and space. His shoulder needs to move. The Queen informed you he is in my care."

"Aye," Hardulf scowled, putting a hand upon his keys of office, "but only up to the Hall was agreed."

"You, who would not dream of keeping a horse confined without exercise, do this? No buts. It is his health that concerns me now. The Captain-General's feet will still be chained and I have his word he will not run."

Boromir, who frankly amazed by the turn of the conversation, nodded quickly. "You see?" Omrud said brightly. "He is a temporary houseguest and not a felon. If he proves false you have my permission to put an arrow through my handiwork."

The little man had remarkable powers of persuasion for soon enough Boromir found his hands unlocked, legs striding fast as the foot chains would allow across the grass of Meduseld's wide lawns. What a miracle. The weight of the chains would be as nothing in another circumstance to one so strong but now a nagging hurt was eased. He felt light as a bird and aimed swiftly for the curtain wall, to where it rose up from the defensive dyke and made a knee high bench. He turned his face into the western wind, let it flow about him like a river about a stone, luxuriating in the fleeting feel of freedom.

Oh, but it felt wonderful. The day was warm and the air was sweet. If he closed his eyes he could imagine himself on Minas Tirith's walls with the white pennants snapping in the breeze.

"You are bearing the indignity well."

The Southron had stopped just beyond his shoulder. Boromir looked back. Beyond Omrud a pair of stiffly silent Riders pretended a disinterest so loud it fairly screamed. In their place with such a valuable prisoner, he would have done the same.

He shrugged. "There is no other choice. But I thank you." He smiled. "My brother and I seem to be doing that a lot."

The little man inclined his head. "It is not long now. Soon you be home."

Home. He could not wait. Twenty times a day he pictured the reunion. Silver trumpets calling the return of the Steward's sons. Holding Merelan and kissing her freckles so hard (and publically) that she blushed like a young girl. Hugging their little boy until Hallas squirmed impatiently. They would be waiting on the walls and he would canter straight up through circles to the barrack gate. Father would be there of course, and Ysabet, prettily crying rivers of joy at Faramir's return. His brother's fiance was a volatile little thing, all highs and lows, winding nigh every man she met around her dainty fingers- with her there it would be a noisy, public, albeit joyful spectacle for all to see.

And yet- he could not banish a lingering sense of dread.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked Omrud quietly.

The man looked askance and then quickly away again. His habitual grin fell to a line of utmost seriousness and Boromir could not decide if that bothered him more. "I have come to love my adopted home," answered Omrud at last. "To see it and its proud people, not even standing, barely upon its knees, pulled into a needless war. No. I cannot have that. And you, as we say upon the sands, have the look of a man who thirsts even at the well. You seek to understand something that has changed. I fear if you do not find it we shall all have no rest. You will not find it below ground."

Boromir nodded slowly. How odd it was to be talking so openly with another who a sennight before he would have assumed was an enemy. Southrons and Dunlendings. The sight of the Dun-Men's leather and fur on patrol down beyond the city's gate made him want to grab his sword- but they were welcomed. Omrud was welcomed.

"Master, tell me, where has the Wormtongue gone? I expected to know his oily voice even from below."

Omrud uttered an oath that would have made Théodred proud. "Fled in fear at the first sign of the ague. A craven, weak-willed, despicable man. So afraid of the pestilence he left his clothes and shoes and every accoutrement."

So, that particular source of calumny could be ruled out. Boromir felt disappointed. How many of Théodred's warnings had gone unheeded by Théoden on the strength of that man's 'advice'? Too many. It would have been satisfying to run him through at last.

"He is hiding back west in the hole from which he first slithered?"

"No." Omrud's smile was tight. "The ague got its revenge. He succumbed. Weeks after leaving, while his Lord and King struggled to contain the spread. He is said to be buried where Avornîn meets her sister Snowbourn. Unmarked and unlamented, for even his own people were appalled by his selfishness."

A fitting end. For a Rohirrim to be buried so was telling- a mound or marker set them on their Road, to find their forefathers' halls. It was why, he'd learned, they put so much effort in the aftermath of battle, found and sung of all those who fell, letting their names carry up to Varda's stars.

Once he'd thought their songs of slaying were macabre, celebrations of destruction, but a season under Théodred's command had shown the truth: they were celebrations of all too fragile life.

Boromir fell silent, watching the now westering sun play on Snowbourn's blue-white eddies and the white gulls dip and dive. How was it that he was here and his friend now lay below under the evermind's bright eyes? Life was unfair, to almost everyone, some more heavily than most, and then Boromir would have said however harsh the Music unfolded as it should. But now? Some thing felt off. He would have laughed and denied the sense (it was his brother who sometimes pulled back the Veil and saw what came to pass) but this time it felt too strong. Like a bass note out of tune. As if another player touched the strings.

He was about to speak, ask Omrud what signs his people took reassurance from, when out of the corner of his eye there came a flash, a streak of grey and silver beyond the ford.

"There is someone there." There was! A rider in a grey cloak and mail rode at speed upon a lathered horse. They had just come upon Snowbourn's rocky ford, flying so fast the road's hardpack flew up from the horse's hooves. The River, when they met it, sprayed all around like the foaming of a cataract.

Omrud shuffled closer, squinting owlishly into the low sun. "What has caught your eye?"

"See there!" Boromir pointed excitedly. "The man has a tunic all in black and there are branches on his breastplate. We must raise the guard! That is the livery of the Tower. The embassy has come!"

~~~000~~~

At that very moment the Queen of Rohan was in council in the hall, doing her utmost to keep a somewhat fractious situation from boiling over.

Her Marshals and advisors, and assorted supporting aides, were arrayed in a loose ring about the base of the royal throne. All were functioning on too spare sleep, all were impatient and arguing and hardly listening to each other.

Twelves months of endless toil and grief, each on a different spoke of the healing wheel, made such collisions inevitable. But not more helpful. Time. Hard but fluid. More precious than any jewel and galloping faster than a Mearas could, it was one of the many things they could not waste, but short of bashing their stubborn fair heads together, she had to let them have their say; let the frustration and irritation fly, because _Béma_ knew otherwise it would fester, like a blemish covered by a dirty rag.

Elfhelm, still in his armour, having come just then from the rocky plains below Hornburg's broad feet, crossed his arms and gave a grunt. Echoed words Éomer had said not a week before. "That came too close for comfort."

The assembled men looked over in amazement. For one who carried silence like a shield, such words were practically a shout.

"Agreed." Éomer, rubbed unhappily at his bearded chin. "But I am at a loss how we can protect the Wold for long, even with Bethoc's help. Derndingle is overrun. You and Erkenbrand have your men riding asleep in the saddle to cover near the Gap. Éowyn and I, with Bethoc's men, must keep all the Enmet safe. There is no other choice."

His words brewed a storm of muttering. They were speaking of a raid just days before-one that had burned crofts and fields below the Downs, terrorized the hardy folk who still clung to its wild, sere beauty. Some, in the aftermath of plague, had sought succor closer to hand; some, made more indomitable in the face of loss, insisted they keep their way of life. The councilors were split as always: east and west. Éomer and herself for Edoras and Aldburg, Elfhelm and Grimbold for Helm's Deep and Grimslade. That left Herustor to sway like a withy in the wind; choosing sides through some whim she could never ken.

"And where will you settle them?" Grimbold asked, chin out and feet spread in obstinance. His always objected the loudest and longest to mass resettlement. She suspected it was because he feared his people, too, might be forced to move. They were closest to the Fords and ever under threat.

"Harrowdale or Avornîn," said Herustor. "The lands are rich enough."

"And close to your own estates," Grimbold shot back.

That was the final straw. The two men fell to open skirmish: shouting and swearing, Herustor loudly decrying the insult to his person; Grimbold, with the temper to his red colouring, not backing down, incensed at what he saw as greed. Herustor stood one step below her chair, his broad frame looming close, one fist was hooked in his heavy enameled belt, one clenched and pounding at empty air. Grimbold was tip to toe, right in his face, pointing so close she fancied Herustor could bite it off.

The rest of her small council stood trying, and failing, to hide their own impatience. Éomer's fingers were drumming on the ruby in his swordhilt. Elfhelm rocked back and forth upon his heels.

It was time to take decisive action.

"Gentlemen!"

The room went satisfyingly, instantly silent; shocked into mute obedience by an intimidating tone she rarely used.

Good. Let them reflect on their behaviour like untutored foals. She did not have time for this and nor did they, and she, the Queen, would make a choice. Béma grant it be right when the knucklebones fell.

She stood and set her shoulders back. "The Downs will be emptied. Éomer have Halva take a company to spread the news. They have a month. The people will be recompensed for their loss, resettled south of the Entwash."

Éomer bowed quickly, though she knew his gaze said 'where'? That would be tomorrow's headache. He had just uttered "Yes, Min Cwēn," when Herustor raised a hand.

"My Lady?"

"Cousin?" she said, resigned to yet more arguing. Some men were born perpetually irate. Herustor, she decided, actually enjoyed being aggrieved. His handsome face was chiseled like hard granite but his eyes were alight and sharper than a wolf's teeth.

"The Wielbrook's tithes are late again," he announced, "I ask permission to levy a fine if they do not comply by Haglimond."

A fine? That would be unusual. And not something she wished to spread when people were still adjusting to new life. "No. Not now. New crops take time to settle. Next year's yield will grow." Literally she hoped. She took a step down, refusing to meet Herustor's gaze, intending to speak with Elfhelm and Grimbold privately, when her cousin once again spoke up.

"One last point, my Lady." The lord of Grimslade and her brother rolled their eyes. "What was that man doing out? Who gave him leave to be abroad?"

Éowyn barely repressed a sigh. What was her cousin going on about? "What man? And where? Could you be more specific?"

"The Captain-General. He was outside on the southern greensward with only a pair of guards to hand. He is dangerous. It would be ill-advised to grant the Stoning scum liberties."

_Stoning scum? _Sometimes Herustor in his zeal to be the perfect servant of the Riddermark, forgot he was born in Gondor. And had an equal portion of its blood flowing in his veins. It was ridiculous, but she did not like excursions for the prisoners of which she was unaware.

She looked to each of her Marshals in turn. "Which of you gave Hardulf the order?"

"I did." Her chief physician's blue robes appeared from beyond a carven pillar and immediately her cousin snorted rudely.

"Omrud. Such a surprise. How unlike you to go beyond your station."

"Pot calling the kettle black," grumbled Grimbold, but Éowyn quickly quelled him with a look. That wouldn't help. They were all impatiently waiting for Gondor's reply. Bickering like children would not change a thing. She waved a hand toward her physician. "Continue, Master."

The litte man bowed and went on, "Forgive me majesty if I have erred, but it was necessary for his heath. I took responsibility and, as you can see, I am quite unharmed. No ill came of the event."

"But it could have," Herustor objected.

"But it didn't," said Grimbold.

_Valar take them and their egos to beyond the Fords_. There were those who considered Eru's music unfathomable and impossibly complex, but Éowyn of Rohan was not one of them, at least where men were concerned. They were sometimes such a pack of beardless boys. Arguing. Posturing. Vying for attention solely to be noticed. Bema himself could come down and still each of them would insist on arguing the same point.

"I will be the judge of that," she snapped coolly, cutting across their muttering. "Master, what do you have to say in this regard?"

"The Captain-General's shoulder had stiffened. Free movement and exercise were the remedy. Dene and Ceorl were close at hand. I told them they could shoot."

Éowyn blinked in surprise. _Did he now?_ In her experience it was unusual for the Southron to countenance any form of violence. Even squashing flies bothered his pacifist tendencies. "I take it, then, that he is still whole?" she enquired curiously as Éomer's mouth quirked.

Omrud bobbed his head. "Yes, my Lady."

A relief. However much her brother might wish to take a swing at the Steward's eldest son, _her_ goal, now that her own ire had somewhat dissipated, was to get the Riddermark's full due of reparations. That meant returning the prisoners in the state they had been found. Or better, preferably, given the pallor of the younger. "And the Captain? You have monitored his recovery?"

"Yes, my Lady. His healing is a trifle slow, but nothing that need be of concern. 'Tis a lingering result of blood-loss and nothing more."

That at least was good news. "How much longer will the Princess's attention be required?"

"A few days, no more. If his incarceration is to be much longer, I'd advise to wait a sennight before you move him to the cells."

"So noted."

Herustor loudly cleared his throat. "My Lady, I would advise you keep Annwn in attendance to gather information."

"Pardon?" Elfhelm, surprisingly, was the source of the next outburst. "Are you suggesting the Princess spy on her own kinsman?"

"Yes," said Herustor, resting both hands on his belt and bullishly sticking out his chest. "They have set against us. Spat on our sovereignty and injured our troops. Massacred our allies. We must know what other insults they plan."

Éowyn winced. '_Massacre_' was rank exaggeration, but it was true no one knew what the Steward would do next. She quickly glanced to her brother. Éomer had two spots of colour high on his cheeks and a deep furrow on his brow. He looked ready to explode and that never boded well.

"That is grossly unfair!" he cried, fist coiled reflexively about his hilt. "You cannot to put her in such straights; in this circumstance. Faramir is her family. Her first cousin. An experienced soldier. He would never say anything to put her in such conflict, much less give Gondor's secrets away."

"Nevertheless it might be worth a try." Herustor insisted. "Given your recent sojourn in the south you can hardly be expected to be impartial," he added unctuously.

Éowyn gasped. Only she knew that Princess Imrahil's youngest daughter had caught the new Crown Prince's eye, that jibe was far to near the bone. Smacked of questioning her brother's loyalty. She looked up to find Éomer's face turning almost purple. She hastily put a hand upon his chest. "Herustor, this isn't trading wheat! I will thank you to keep your opinions to yourself until requested. Annwn is a Princess of Rohan first and her tireless efforts speak volumes in that regard. She will attend the prisoner as Master Omrud sees fit and nothing more. This was an entirely needless and unprecedented conflict of Gondor's making, "she went on, "but I will not compound the ill by setting her in conflict. _ I_ will choose what actions we shall take."

Thank _Béma's horn_ the chorus of assent was swift. She reached the hall's tiled floor and began to wend her way through the swiftly parting sea of taller men, when the guards at Meduseld's great doors stood to attention, rapped spears on sunburst shields and the Door Warden called out,

"Éowyn-Queen, Idon of Gondor requests an audience."

"Granted," she answered immediately, turning to catch her brother's eye. Éomer shrugged. He knew no more than she about the swiftness of this timing. Hopefully it meant a swift assent and even swifter resolution.

The iron and oak great doors swung slowly inward to let the messenger pass. A tall guard in Gondor's black and silver strode in, head high and shoulders back, mud of the road upon his black boots and spurs striking sparks on the many hued flags beneath his feet.

When he came abreast of the great stone hearth he knelt and offered out a coiled parchment scroll.

"Éowyn –Queen, I bear tidings from Denethor, son of Echthelion, Steward of Gondor."

The hall fell instantly silent. Éomer reached forward to grasp the missive, checked it's white wax seal and nodded once. It was unmarred and correct: 'Arandur' in Tengwar above a winged crown. The symbol of the Steward, servant of the King.

She took the wooden finials in hand, swiftly unwound the leaves and scanned the contents.

_Blessed Béma's horn._

The formal Sindarin was not too long nor difficult. Drawing a deep breath, she raised her voice and spoke, translating for her Marshals' benefit.

"Gondor agrees to the majority of terms for the exchange." Silence lingered for a beat, as if the whole hall had held its breath and then a spontaneous clapping broke out. "The wereguild of coin and livestock shall be delivered here five days hence," she went on, raising her voice to be heard above the din. "The Gondorian wains with their guard shall be escorted here from Mering Stream by Riders of the Second Marshal's eored. Lord Hurin will accompany them and hand over the official acceptance of the terms."

There was a ripple of relief. Whatever Denethor's motivations, he had seen reason. Blinked at this first debacle and _Valar _pray that meant there would be none more. She scanned further, hoping for, but not really expecting, a word of apology. There was none. That was not the Steward's style, but after a bare few sentences thanking her for her 'hospitality' for his sons, there was an extra line. In bold.

She read it and in dismay put a hand to her breast.

"What?" Éomer started forward, eyes dark blue with worry. She looked up and met his gaze before turning and speaking for all the hall to hear.

"The Steward has refused to pay weregild for his second son."

What in all of Arda were they now to do?

* * *

Sorry this is a little delayed everyone.. I have been travelling a lot for work. And just deposited at teen at university. Yippee! more time to write.. Thanks to all who commented and favourited or followed. I am so so thankful for your support.

Now the fun begins! What would you do with a houseguest that outstays their welcome? What is Denethor up to? And will Eowyn start bashing heads together? more in a few weeks :)


	5. Assumptions

"Why?"

The question that consumed them dropped like a stone into a quiet that stretched thin and brittle in the study's crowded space. Rohan's queen, face grave and eyes coolly apprising, sat unmoving in her high-backed chair, one slim hand upon the letter's immaculate tengwar. By the empty hearth, her brother paced a faded carpet worked in green and gold, arms crossed across his chest and drawn up to every inch of his great height. Bristling as if this latest surprise were a personal affront.

Perhaps it was. Boromir-shocked, confused- heart-aching for the brother who hid his composure in the view of the westering sun that set white-capped peaks ablaze-had no earthly idea why their father should do this now.

"My Lady, I do not know."

It was the _Valar_'s veriest own truth. A raw, uncomfortable place to be and Boromir, who had studied Alcarin and Mardil and Turgon and every tactic of the battlefield, could not divine the stratagem behind. There was no value to it, nor advantage, and that meant he had no answer to offer anyone.

Least of all the pale, worried face that sat hunched upon the window seat.

"What say you, Captain?" asked Éowyn, turning to its occupant.

Faramir shrugged a shoulder but did not meet her gaze. "Naught."

An honest reply. He had no more sense than Boromir-a fact established by their hurried whisperings as they were shuttled to this audience- but their dissembling of the days before had left much room for doubt. Éomer rolled his eyes to the great oak beams, shaking his head in disbelief. "You expect us to accept that Gondor's treasury, fabled to surpass even a Dwarven hoard, does not run to one Ranger Captain?"

Faramir countered quietly. "You know that to be untrue."

"Then explain why this is not an insult?!" fumed Éomer, losing the war with temper and frustration and throwing up his hands. "Does your father treat us like merchants in the country market—pretending to walk away to gain a better price?"

"No. _No!"_

Their denials came out in unison. _Surely not_, thought Boromir, it was not Denethor's way to be so very predictable. His father liked games like chess or _taphae_: thinking twenty moves ahead to snatch a win suddenly like a hawk a swooping on a mouse.

"If the Council for some reason I do not ken chose not to pay, my own family might have sufficient funds," he offered, then immediately regretted it. Of course they had sufficient gold—his own little-touched stipend ran to nearly so much, and he could not imagine their Uncle Imrahil not offering to pay. All of it made the act so strange.

The Steward, for some reason of his own, wished his sons separated—without warning or consideration for the unpleasant shock.

His shuffled unhappily, making the ankle irons clank. The Queen and her Marshal exchanged a look and Éowyn uncannily echoed his own thought. "The Steward of Gondor chooses to keep apart his best commanders? With his own lands under threat and a neighbour and ally accused of calumny?" Her voice was tight, her fair brow furrowed in annoyance. "This looks like a barely plausible ruse to keep a spy within our midst."

Could that be the plan? Did he believe it? There were easier ways to have eyes and ears in Edoras, if far-seeing were not enough. The Steward's spies were everywhere. Once or twice he had caught a chattier guard or maid looking keenly at his face and though he waited for them to reveal themselves, none did. Yet the mystery of the coin remained. For a moment he was almost tempted to speak of it, but then Faramir turned and a flicker of unease rippled through his gaze.

To speak of knowledge gained by palantír—whose very existence was kept secret even from Mithrandir- would be a risk. One of them had to be good at lying. And that was not the one to be left behind.

"I am soldier, Éowyn–Queen, not a spy," Faramir averred. "On that you have my word."

The lady looked unconvinced. A blond eyebrow rose and her fingers drummed impatiently on the parchment. After a moment, she rose and both brothers followed suit. "Captain, Captain-General, if you have so little insight I shall leave you to ponder on it. Perhaps time will jar more words lose from your tongues. Hardulf!" Their jailor slipped in through the door, pike in hand. "Take the prisoners back to the Captain's room. Have them bide there until the wains arrive."

"_Gea_, min Qwen."

They were dismissed. Hardulf, and two fellows, made to take their charges out but Boromir resisted, planting his massive feet athwart the threshold.

"Wait."

The queen's white skirts rustled as she turned to face the door. A curt nod gave him leave to speak.

"What will happen to Faramir?" he asked. "When I am gone?"

Éowyn cocked her head and laid one hand on her gleaming torc of office. It shone ruddy in the now fading light. "Happen? He shall be kept our prisoner until Gondor pays the weregild."

"In the dungeon?"

"Yes. When Master Omrun says that he is fit."

_When_. The thought of it made Boromir's stomach sink. Made him want to hit out at something but he settled for stomping hard as he could in chains, resisting each step down the corridor.

When, at last, the sick room door swung shut, he indulged the fury that grown steadily with the twilight.

"Morgoth's hells, he better have a bloody good excuse!"

"Does he need one?" asked Faramir, rubbing tiredly at his nape. "He has shoved us where he would for years." The words came with an almond undertone of bitterness. It vanished swift as a minnow darting into the depths; replaced by the self-deprecation that was his habitual disguise. "Father always will wrest advantage from any circumstance he can, but we did not expect this pass. We have no orders on his behalf."

But that did not mean they would not be expected to guess his mind. "Do you think that we are watched?" he asked, eyeing curiously a small slit in the wall where plaster met a massive timber. "There could be another reason to house us here."

Faramir shook his head. "I have searched. There is nothing untoward that I could see."

Boromir ran his hands across the fresh whitewash, feeling nothing out of place. "So you are not a spy, but a prudent soldier?" he grinned when he had done.

"I _am_ a soldier not a spy," Faramir huffed. "I fear Father is gravely mistaken if he thinks I have picked up your acting skills. I could not keep it up for long."

"True." What point in denying the obvious? The Steward's youngest when caught once with a hand in the cookie jar (and encouraged by the elder to deny it) had looked positively tied in knots trying to force out a fib. "Yet he mostly likely expects you to try."

Boromir sighed heavily. What a bloody mess! The raid and the aftermath. Suddenly desperate for a drink, he stalked to the hearth, setting a warm hand on Faramir's shoulder as he went by. Someone, perhaps Annwn, had thoughtfully left two cups and a green glass flask upon the mantle-piece. He slopped out two generous measures and shoved the cap back with a squeak. "I apologize for my jest. You _are_ apparently priceless. Gondor does not have sufficient funds."

They drank a silent toast and Faramir, insisting it went the other way, snorted, coughed a little as the quite acceptable fruit-fired brandy went down. "They broke the bank with you, though it is almost less than your yearly tab at the Swan and Raven."

"But twice yours at the Quill and Quire!"

_Nienna_, that got a ghost of a smile. His brother's love of books was nigh as legendary as his of a warm fire and good drink. The Quill and Quire was Minas Tirith's most opulent bookshop in the Fifth. It smelled of musty leather and old parchment and new twine. Faramir saluted with his cup. "Bravo. For once it is you who are in the gold."

"Until your superior aim bests me again." Boromir forced himself to slump into an empty chair and paint on a certainty he didn't feel. "Twill not be long. As soon as my boots touch white cobblestone I will speak with Father privately, find out his plans. Inside a month you will be back and under Ithilien's leaves, glorying in her beauty and grumbling about supply lines again."

"Possibly." Faramir swirled the dregs his cup before he reached to pour a second dram. "And if it is not, how then shall we communicate? The Queen, I confess surprises me. She may, as she says, keep a pair of 'spies' together now, hoping we choose to turn, but after? Our letters, assuming such are allowed, will be read and the point of observation is to have reports."

Assuming their father's plan was to have a set of eyes. The alternative, that Denethor wished to keep away his son, was not something to be countenanced. "I shall have to write in code."

"You?" Faramir scoffed, mouth quirked wryly. "You can barely scratch out a receipt!"

"Imp!"

"Do you deny it? Mablung says your lieutenants quake at deciphering your chicken scratch."

"Better than your Elvish embellishments with their frills and furbelows!"

Both brothers chuckled for a moment. _Valar_ but the teasing felt good. It began to ease a little the unhappy band of tightness that had taken up residence in Boromir's chest.

He threw the last of the brandy back, set the cup aside and tried to still his mind. To _think_. The instinct to disbelieve the edict had been so strong he had demanded to see the missive; been relieved to find the tiny, tight elegant script above the RnR was their father's own-Denethor had had the grace to write out the order himself. Three thousand thrymsas. A substantial amount but within the Hurin fortune. To refuse it made no sense to him even with knowledge as the goal.

Wheels inside wheels, puzzles inside puzzles spun inside the Steward's nimble mind but his eldest was hard pressed to see the point.

"I have long been convinced there is no shame in not being him."

Boromir's head snapped up. Faramir had taken up residence on the bed, was sitting back to the headboard, tunic laces and cuffs undone, as if his only care was trying to soothe _him_.

It was kind, and maddening, and not proper the way around. "Are you truly well?"

"Of course."

_So that was how they were to be_. Worries let to run like water off a duck's back, denied behind the mask of quiet duty that hid the man who felt everything deeply, more intensely than did most.

Boromir waited patiently. Sometimes, if given space and air, his brother said what was on his mind.

"He must know that to refuse would insult Rohan more."

Back to strategy. He sighed, realizing he should not be surprised to get no satisfaction. In this his brother and his father could be too very much alike. "Yes," he answered, "and they are well and truly insulted. The Queen has already made that clear. I can see how they call her Snow. Her fury is anything but warm."

Faramir's eyes narrowed. "But it hides, I judge, a heart that cares more than she shows." This was, of course, the pot calling the kettle black, but t'would serve nothing to point it out. "If he wished to have a spy in Edoras why one so publicly refused?" asked Faramir thoughtfully.

"Sympathy? To think you cut off and vulnerable."

His brother made a face. "Shall I pout like an abandoned pup?"

"Nay," Boromir laughed, but then stopped for there was a loose thread here to pull. His voice rose in excitement. "To drop their guard. Give you time and latitude to find out more. Father fears the plot goes to the heart of Eorl's kin. As a highborn prisoner you will have more liberty."

"You are starting to think like him."

An somewhat dubious compliment. "Nay, I am serious, Five days is far too short to learn anything of any use."

"Except that the Dunlendings are here on sufferance."

"But not the why of it, as you have pointed out."

Faramir bit his lip and a line now firmly ensconced itself between his brows, a sure sign that he was thinking hard. "As to that, I might have a theory."

"You do?" Boromir sat up like a bloodhound on a scent. "_Tulkas_ man, spit it out. Do not keep it underneath a rock!"

His brother swiftly shook his head. "I need to see more first. I would not have us hare off on some false trail."

_Better some trail than none_ was Boromir's unguarded thought, but he would not deny that after feeling adrift on a sea of shifting sand having some purpose before the approaching wrench would do them good. He must trust to follow where Faramir led. "See what? Tell me. We have precious little time and no more light this day."

They hadn't. The sun had fallen far behind the bulk of the looming range and already twilight's ruddy gold had faded to deeper shadows of blue-black. Faramir reached to strike a spark, to light the candle by the bed.

"The refugees," he said, face set in the candle-glow. "The Dunlending refugees. I want to see their camp."

Boromir nodded once. "I think I know how that can be arranged."

~~~000~~~  
.

A day and much cajoling by the Master later saw a somewhat motley crew stroll down Edoras' winding central thoroughfare beneath a sky as majestic as it was threatening. Faramir was entranced. Great tumbling clouds boiled out over the waving grass upon the plain, pregnant with rain and the memory of chiller wastes and the turning of the year.

It was beautiful and invigorating; he was free to stretch his limbs and his heart felt lighter than it had in days. Even the grim-faced guards that stalked them did not irritate. Two for Boromir and one for him. He was not inclined to feel insulted by the balance.

Omrun, who looked quite pleased at his feat, lead them down the smooth flagged steps, out onto the broad path. On his shoulder was a heavy satchel stuffed to overflowing and in his hands lay a pair of green wool cloaks. "Here, my lords," he said, handing them across, "cover yourselves. I do not advise you catching chill from wet and there is little to gain in drawing attention to yourselves."

The garments were accepted gratefully. From the many dark doors and shuttered windows that they passed, the folk of Edoras had decided wet would be the day. The broad path was clear, the only sound the chattering of the spring that flowed in its fluting down hill to the gate.

The brothers followed the dark blue beacon of little Haradrim's robes. They wound through the city's lower quarter, eyeing curiously the stout wood houses piled upon the jut of rock like crates upon an ox's back. Every chimney spouted a thin trail of smoke—a relief to see after so many on the Great Road disspiritingly tamped out.

By the stout iron-banded central gate, they were stopped by bright-mailed guards with sunbursts upon their shields. They barred the way and demanded to know their business.

"Well met young sirs," said Omrun tugging his goatee and giving an entirely elegant bow. "I am the Queen's physician. I have the her leave to take the prisoners for exercise." His dark eyes sparkled. A parchment was produced and swiftly inspected for its contents.

They were waved on. Faramir breathed a sigh of relief as they stepped below the high carved lintel. _Nienna's pity_. Now they might make some progress.

A little ways down the now steeply sloping path Omrun paused and glanced up at the taller of the Guards and a few sentences of Rohirric were swiftly exchanged. "Hardulf says we now have a half-candlemark, no more, and are to keep within their reach."

Boromir grunted. "I'll not be sprinting trussed like this."

"Nevertheless. The Queen has barred you from the Hall and the barracks and stableblock. I am not certain _I_ approve so much time, but I must go down and ascertain who among the Woldfolk need our care. After I take you to the camp, the men will see you back." He tapped a finger insistently on Faramir's forearm. "If it proves too much, you will let me know."

A low chuckle rumbled from beyond his shoulder. "We will know when he falls flat upon his face."

"I have been up sooner after worse," Faramir protested instantly.

His brother, who ignored his quelling look, gazed curiously down the green shoulders of the hill, waggling his eyebrows. The climb back up would be long and more than likely wet.

"Splendid," muttered Omrun. "Are all your countrymen so ridiculously stubborn? Some strain of madness from old Westernesse has crept back in?"

Boromir chuckled but Faramir was steadfast. Nothing pulled or hurt. He felt keyed up, eager to be about. And besides, an evening abed with strained muscles later would be more than worth the effort. "I am fine."

"Let us hope you do not regret those words."

Omrun carried on. He led them past the silent, white-crowned barrows to the west where the gently rolling foothills spread out into the vast green-gold of the plain. Nestled in a curve of Snowbourn's grassy banks, lay a most unlikely city. Tents of cow and deer-hide, desultorily smoking cook-fires and damp, fur-swaddled figures all huddled under the leaden sky. Row after row, avenue after avenue; hundreds of stone-faced, dark-haired folk went about the business of subsistence. Pots bubbled and goats, annoyed at being milked, maa'd stridently. Sentries, proud and straight-backed, stood to attention with great canines at their sides. Now close in, Faramir could see they were not wargs; theirs was not fur of steel or black and eyes of sickly yellow, but brindle and warm leaf litter grey. With eyes of a pale and startling blue.

He also noted something else.

"They are all women."

Boromir nodded at his quiet outburst. "Yes. Even to the guards." The nearest, a reed-thin, lanky youth with her people's fabled dun-coloured tattoos upon her face, clasped her spear and dropped a leather-bound hand into her familiar's fur.

It growled, low and menacing in its throat.

"Peace."

The Master raised his hands and the creature settled down.

They walked a little farther in, acknowledging each camp-fire; Tsyr, Gram and Hardulf silently following but at attention none the less. The women watched from narrowed eyes. Most were crones, their markings tan and wrinkled as their cheeks; a few were small girls in plaits- too little yet for the ritual of scarring. They sat about their ama's skirts shucking dry-husked summer corn.

At the third such knot the uncomfortable truth hit home.

There were no boys. Or women of breeding age.

Omrun halted. Beside him stood a low set but roomier tent and below the eaves of its sloping roof were piled bags of herbs and yards of rough woven linen. A healer. Perhaps one who would agree to share some lore.

"Do not the Dun-women fight?" Faramir asked the Master softly. "Our lore has always held them to be fierce. As doughty as their men. Are they away?"

"Let me ask. Stata and I have shared only the wisdom of our vocations."

"You have Dunlendish?"

The Haradrim smiled, eyes glinting. "I have a little of everything."

_Of course he did_. Omrun approached the wary but not unwelcoming old woman who threw back the leather doorflap. Hands and words in a short sharp dialect flew quickly, back and forth until the Dunlending stopped, shaking her fist into the northern wind and making the bones and feathers on her wrists rattle musically.

"These are all their womenfolk," explained Omrun softly in Westron, cheeks flushed with barely bridled anger. "The others were taken by Orcs of Isengard. All those of marriageable age. And the boy children were put to the sword."

_Valar's grace_. Faramir's stomach lurched. "All?"

"All. Some few escaped but most are gone." No wonder then that they had fled and sought protection. "Have you seen enough?" Omrun asked quietly, pointedly looking to Faramir's bandaged midriff. "Your allotted time is near."

"Yes," he answered truthfully.

Faramir pressed hand to heart and lips in as neat an imitation of the Haradrim's graceful bow as he could do and was rewarded with a wide smile around cracked teeth-an unexpected blessing that lingered, for the walk back to the gate was sobering. The many dark luminous eyes and silent campfires told a most sorrowful and heart-breaking tale.

When Omrun stopped to share words with the Hardulf and Tsyr, Boromir leaned in close.

"How fares your theory?" he asked, switching to Sindarin, confident that none of the guards could catch much of their words.

"Well, though I wish it were not so." Faramir turned his face into the unseasonably biting wind and looked toward the plain. "Saruman has a problem. He expected swift surrender but the Riddermark has not folded. Far from it. Éowyn and Éomer are making him rue the exchange. He needs more soldiers."

Boromir sucked in a breath. "The Dun-women?"

"Yes. To breed with Uruk-hai I guess. But now even that route is cut off to him with the youngest under guard." He forced himself to say the evil words, drawing on lore long stashed away. "Rape is not the only way new Orcs are born. Water, fuel of the forest, and flux. It is said that Aulë, in his honest mistake, used that recipe and fashioned the Dwarves with liquid stone." He looked askance at his brother. "Saruman has not that luxury. What should he use?" "I know not."

Boromir clenched his fist. "And Father saw carts and wains lumbering through West Enmet; gold finding its way to the treasury. Tis is not only the Wizard who grasps with greed."

Faramir sighed. "But who?" _And how could they find out in so little time_?

There was no reply. He put a hand up to hold his rippling hood. At first he took the dust thrown up above the fields to be the stiffening wind, but, then, after some moments wait, a cavalcade appeared riding south at speed. Each Rider had a passenger riding pillion, a slower file of carts and wagons came behind.

At its head was a grey stallion and a captain with a white horsetail on his shining helm.

_Éomer_.

"My work arrives," announced Omrun grimly, stepping up and gathering his robes about himself. The prisoners watched silently from the edge of the small gathered crowd: their escort seemed disinclined to move and so they too, stood fast.

The Riders came thundering up, filling all the greensward before the Ford with a jingling of harness and stamping of hooves. Éomer reined in his mount, turning about in the saddle to bark orders at the men before swivelling to face the gate.

He looked down, nodded a hasty greeting to Omrun. "Master, well met. Your arrival is timely."

The Haradrim inclined his head. "I aim always to be of service. How may I help my Lord? How many are they?"

"A half dozen villages. These are but the first to come under threat. More follow on the morrow and the day after that. There are no wounds too serious amongst the men. "

"Thank the Wind Lord."

"And Béma," Éomer made a sign. "As for the folk it is but agues and fevers. True ague," he added, automatically, for talk of fever instantly worried all. He motioned for a Rider to approach.

A tall bay trotted forward. Its Rider held a woman with pale wan cheeks wrapped in a grey, knit blanket before him. "Aldan has one goodwife you must see. She was brought to bed before her time. The women worry for she still bleeds."

"And the babe?"

Éomer's face creased into a smile. "A fine young warrior who cries lustily enough for all he'd fit into my palms."

At that Omrun approached Aldan's stirrup and the woman shyly pulled back an inch of covering. An affronted bleat arose. Cooler air had touched tiny cheeks below a skiff of straight blond hair. "Ah, I see. A wee one who is a fight wrapped in a cloth. Good news at that." Omrun patted the blanket reassuringly and looked up to the Rider's windburned face. "Take them straight away to Meduseld, I will care for them both."

"Bless you my lord," came the soft reply and the healer bustled on, inspecting each passenger, completing a triage of sorts; directing some Riders to move their charges, handing others medicaments and herbs from the bulging satchel.

Unnoticed for the nonce, Faramir and Boromir stood and watched the file of refugees lumber nearer. The rearguard moved slow in a noisy but controlled chaos: wagons and oxen, horses and sheep, all marched under their tired, bedraggled owners' eyes. Bairns sat on ox-back beside chickens flapping hysterically in cages and stools and small chests strapped down. All that could be moved at something of a speed. It looked no temporary change.

"Is not the Wold two days ride from here?" Faramir asked Boromir and the wind took the words, for the Marshal rounded on them, spinning his stallion in place.

"Omrun stetches the definition of a leash, I see," Éomer noted tersely. He looked up to the silent sentries. "They have leave?"

"Aye, my Lord," answered Hardulf stiffly. "The Queen's."

The Marshal swore long and colourfully. "Then the three of you must pray her trust is not misplaced." He lean back to pull a flask from a saddle-bag, took a hurried swig and drew a dust covered sleeve across his mouth, eyeing them thoughtfully. "It is perhaps not an ill thing that you should see our state. _Gea_, the Wold is too far to keep secure. What began as soon as Théoden-King and my cousin Théodred were sung to their rest grows worse. Summer draws to its close. They race to do damage while the paths are clear. And now I must ride without my second," he added, brows drawn together in a thundrous frown, "for we dare not be caught by the autumn rains."

There was nothing to say to that that would not rile, and so Faramir held his gaze steadily, acknowledging the lack. "Where do they go?" he asked at last. Surely with a camp of Dunfolk already there, there was little more space to hand?

Éomer pointed to another Rider astride a sleek chestnut mare. The man sat tall in the saddle, with an imposing face saved from total austerity by quite piercing eyes. "My cousin's lands. West about the feet of Thrihyrne. They were hit hard. Plague spared not the poor nor those of noble lineage. They have many empty crofts."

Faramir wondered how the folk would feel, abandoning their homes for those of ghosts. Angered most likely, unhappy that their Queen could not protect what had been safe long in their memory.

He was spared the perhaps foolish urge to ask by the hail of a smooth-cheeked young lad yet to be relieved of his hunched and whiskered baggage. "Marshal?! Athred is here!"

Éomer uttered an oath again and took up his reins. "I must go. I have much to do here and an errand to attend." His jaw tightened and his gaze fell on Boromir for a longer moment. "Perhaps you have seen enough. Isengard attacks all without regard or mercy. Tell your father that. There is reason we have had to join with our enemies."

~~~000~~~

A candlemark later Rohan's queen was battling her own swirl of dust, inspecting folio after folio, reflecting on how quickly necessity made one adopt new and foreign skills.

Thengel and Fengel, and most certainly Théoden, had never set foot in Edoras' tiny archives. The kings of Rohan had long relied on the expert memories of their thyles, eshewed the formal task of physical record-keeping but Éowyn, who prided herself on bypassing sorrow and using the anger that rode hard each day, had turned over a new leaf. She had become well acquainted with its purported filing system.

There was order here—if one was used to the erratic roots of trees reaching crookedly about. The archive looked exactly like what it was: an afterthought. The small anteroom off the Golden Hall had only the loosest of organizations and now, with Cedric's loss but weeks after her ascension and Walda's departure for Minas Tirith's tidy halls, she was the unfamiliar keeper of its ways.

Fortunately she knew exactly what she sought.

Small, strong fingers shoved away yet another heavy crumbling ledger and dug deeper in the mass. The louver up high let in what little there was of the midday light- shining on turned wood shelves, cracked green leather tomes and old parchments. It was far from the immaculate order of the Muster, but as she dug the oldest records came into view: that part, thank _Béma_, that had seen a steadier, constant hand.

She lifted off a tottering pile tied in fraying, faded emerald ribbon and coughed at a cloud of rising dust, trying not to notice the moth that hastily flapped away. A cleaning and cataloguing were in desperate need, but they would have to wait. She redoubled her efforts and after several minutes more: success. Below a pocked velvet cloth upon the shelf, sat a small case of black Lebrethon wood with brass hinges aged to almost black.

A lump rose in her throat. _Oh Uncle. Would that you were here_.

"Min Cwen?"

The voice that raised was Éomer's. "In here!" she replied, hoisting the box up onto the desk, looking up in time to see a tanned and tired face slip through the door.

"You get no rest," she chided, accepting his swift, strong hug.

"And you do?" His brow rose skeptically. "Am I mistaken? You are lying around eating fruits and honeyed sweetmeats on silks and satin all the day?"

She rolled her eyes and Éomer's mouth twitched as he pulled back to peruse the detritus of her search. It lay about like so much sediment on a paper sea. "If you are looking for the Steward's motivation you will not find it here."

"Ha! Sooner ask a wizard. Even they would not understand that man."

"Gea. I do not trust him as far as I can toss him. Or his sons," added Éomer, picking up and inspecting a folio, frowning at the dark confetti of flecks clung to his fingertips. "You give them too much liberty."

"I give them enough rope to reveal themselves," Éowyn replied, dusting her hands and planting them upon her hips. "Boromir is just as proud as his reputation and his pride was pricked to take a loss. He would sooner bite off his tongue than admit what lies behind. But his brother, he is the one who bears watching. Where did our houseguests go on their little jaunt?"

"I spoke with Tsyr. He says to Stata's fire."

"Stata?"

"Bethoc's headwife. The healer. They stayed just long enough to speak of the clearance."

"Good. Then they shall understand the true danger that we face." Sheshuddered a moment_, _thinking of the unspeakable acts inflicted on the captives. What was to stop Saruman taking women of the Mark? He had shown his true colours-blackhearted treachery- and no longer would they be swayed by false beguiling words. "Orcs may come down out of the Brown Lands and harry Anorien betimes, but Gondor's folk are not under threat."

"Yet."

"True." Éowyn was privately of the mind that the Steward's perspective would be improved if it were he out of his high white Tower at the pointy end of a sword and not his sons, but she did not say it. She pulled out her dirk from her belt and began to test the edges of the box, waiting for the rest of Éomer's report. When none was forthcoming, she asked. "Did you find the one you sought?"

"I did." His knife joined hers, loosening at the grime.

"Well?"

She looked up to see him frowning unhappily. "He recognized it."

"Is that not good news?"

"After a fashion. The crystal is soaking salt."

"Soaking salt?!" That was entirely unexpected. "The powder we paste on hooves? It looks nothing the like!"

"Aye." Éomer frowned. "Athred's prospector says sometimes, rarely, it forms whole lodes, tilted in the mountain's bed."

_Lodes?_ How strange for her cousin to take a fancy to a rock? Théodred's study had always been lined with badges and totems, and every sort of blade known in the Old Realms, but never rocks or shells or nature's bric-a-brac. "Why should he keep that?"

"Why indeed? You were there. When he.. When I…."

_Was not_.

She watched the brooding guilt rise up to trip Éomer unawares; aching for him, wanting to reach out, but knowing it was long past when _he_ would accept solace from her. To worry at it was a habit they both should have long let go, but the heaviness was a welcome anchor. Especially in the early watches of the night.

"I know not, _min heort_," she said, gently as he would take. "Only that he raged and raved. And would not let Annwn touch it."

Éomer looked away, studying the dark corners of the space-the piles of history, the long discarded dreams- but they brought neither answer nor explanation. He roughly cleared his throat. "You are resolved upon this course?"

"I am." Éowyn's reply was steady despite the sudden beating of her heart. There were two questions wound into his words, though both had the selfsame answer.

He muttered darkly. Together they bent over, prying hard again at the corroded brass, redoubling their efforts but it would not budge. "Stand back," he ordered and she watched as he bashed harder with the hilt, brute force winning over design. He lifted the lid up. It whined and protested but gave way.

Inside, on pale cream satin, lay a scroll. The vellum was scribed in precious indigo and gilt, the spindles turned intricately and carved with stars and ships and trees.

She sighed at the beauty of it. How light it was, and delicate for something of such weight.

Éomer's gaze found hers and he placed his large palm on her wrist in warning. "Have a care, sister," he breathed as she lifted up the relic of half an Age.

"None of us can know where all of this shall lead."

~~~000~~~

Away beyond the White Mountains solid spine, a lithe and quite startlingly handsome man pulled his fashionable wine-coloured cloak closer about himself and trotted up the townhouse's front steps.

It was late. The good citizens of Minas Tirith were already safe in their beds, the Tower Guard had changed the midnight watch. Only the wind that blew steadily off Mindolluin's prow danced in the streets and sighed about the sash.

He set the heavy key into the lock. Slipped through the ornate door into the darkened hall;  
leaning back against the smoothness of the wood and closing his eyes; letting a most satisfied smile play along his lips.

The errand had been a success.

One sachet. A bare teaspoonful of herb mixed into wine had no bitter taste. Almost invisible in the dark ruby vintages Denethor preferred. The Steward was a man of modest habits (though not always temper) and therein lay a satisfying challenge: the Lord of Gondor took only two smallish glasses each eve and there were no other opportunities. The single instant of thrilling, groin-twisting, ecstatic danger came in the moment Denethor turned away. The long sleeve of the man's brocaded robe had almost-almost-upset the cut crystal of the swiftly doctored goblet. Swift as a snake, he had grabbed the stem—steadied it before sprinkling in the last few grains. They floated like leaves in an eddy for an instant before mercifully following their fellows into the wine's glistening depths.

It would be, perhaps, advisable to next time offer a rare vintage of his own.

He doffed his cloak and stalked with care down a corridor lit only by moonlight that spilled, sleek and silver, through the arched fanlight. It was an annoyance. There was no welcoming fire, no blazing torch to light his way, but he would take no household staff. It was safer that way. And the assumption of eccentricity (as well as a confirmed bachelor's moderate debauchery) did much to neuter the Court's more pernicious inquisitors.

By the foot of the grand split stairs he ducked into the tiny garderobe; washed his hands with care and crossed to the dark recess of the library. There he knelt at the marble hearth, ignoring the cold coals in favour of the kindling, and struck a light.

For an instant his face flared within the iron mirror above the mantle-piece.

Once more he stopped to marvel that the transformation was so complete. This visage was prouder. Stronger. With high cheekbones and full lips that easily dropped Pelargir's softer, rounded vowels. Some days he quite forgot he was not a nobleman, was not born where sea birds cried into the salt-tanged wind and the great River swelled her marshy banks.

Until, as now, when his Master required a report.

When the lamp upon the desk gave a stout enough flame to work, he sat. A quill was quickly trimmed and parchment inked. He called a black nightwing of his need to come and it circled, once, before setting yellow feet upon the wood.

That brought yet another thrill of power. Manwe's creatures did not bend to ill by nature or design-twas far sweeter than he could have thought.

A message was tied to its skinny leg and he bid the creature to set off, to wing over valleys of twisted, putrid flowers and mountains draped grey with sharp-smelling ash.

The words in black ink on black would show clearer in the ruddy light of Arda's forge.

"It has begun."

.

* * *

Thank so so very much to everyone who has commented and fav'd or followed! There is a little easter egg for Thanwen embedded in this-anyone care to guess? ^_^

It has begun indeed.. next chapter Boromir must set off and we shall see more of what, and who, awaits him at home.

Huge kudos and thanks to Lialathuveril, Carawyn, Gwynnyd and Haarajot for comments and critters on this chapter. Very very helpful-and above and beyond for accepting that I am doing-things-with their beloved Rohan.


	6. Lovest I not honour more

Merry Christmas everyone! Yes it is a chapter! A good long one, and I have finally snuck in time to finish it. As Anna alluded to there have been things going on-a health scare for our son and lots of travelling for work. Being in the middle seat on an airplane is not conducive to writing!

* * *

Exactly five days later, just as the Steward promised, Húrin, Warden of the Keys, flanked by Éomer's eored, rode into Edoras with the white tree flying high and a full company of winged-helm knights around exactly one lumbering, laden wain.

It was after noon. The day that had promised to be fair was flirting. It let the sun that had teased farmfolk to roll up sleeves peek out only now and then, made sentries standing still appreciate their cover. A chiller, most unseasonable, wet-threatening wind was tumbling down out of Misty Mountains' storied vales, lifting the pennants on the Riders spears and their long gold hair.

At the doors of Meduseld Éowyn began to appreciate her cloak. Wet at harvest time was worrying; an ill omen some would say, but she, by nature more inclined to careful observation, refused to think it so. She stood before the golden pillars and watched the troop wend their way up Edoras's central street. Their hooves rung loud upon the stones as they picked their way up the short rises of broad flagged steps until they reached the foot of Meduseld's great terrace.

Éowyn clenched her jaw. It was a rather florid display of might for Denethor: fifty knights on warrior stallions were not needed to guard so small a hoard—Rohan was not so lawless yet—but even as the implication burned she forced herself to look about. The fabled roof of the Golden Hall gleamed under the midday sun. Rows of proud, steel-eyed Riders stood heads high with Anor blazoned on their shields, their bosses overlaid with gold and set with gems of green and red and white. On each spear was the running horse on green. They had their own display of regal strength; one far more alive than the severeness of black and silver to her mind and even she had eschewed all white for a signal of their state.

'_You are going for subtle today_,' Éomer winked, not winded in the slightest after sprinting up the steps to join her before the doors. The new ceremonial armour crafted by Lindis for Haglimond was gilt and silvered and worked with intricate knots of wheatgold and green.

No, not so very subtle. But sadly also necessary.

Húrin dismounted. He doffed the winged helm and held it close; bowed slowly before drawing breath to speak. His gaze held the same weight of worry as it had the year before but this time overlaid with a certain wariness. "Éowyn –Queen of Rohan, I am come yet again on embassy from Denethor of Gondor. I bear with me 800 mirian of gold as weregild for the Steward's son, for your allies's injury and the wounding of your Lieutenant. All is correct and here as asked."

_All?_ At her swordhand Éomer gave a snort. 1200 mirian was the price- Hurin knew it, as did they all, but he was bound to serve his elder cousin's whim. "No more than that?" she queried sternly, just to be certain.

The Warden unhappily shook his head. "Nay, your highness. No more."

Then Denethor _had_ kept his word. Damn him to Angband and back! The man's stubborn intransigence dropped them all into an infuriating and awkward situation and now there was no choice but to face it. Éowyn opened her mouth to speak but an angry muttering began to ripple.

"An insult!" barked Herustor, eyes flashing darkly, gold glinting his braided beard. As always he was the first to rile, but she quickly turned and held a hand upraised, stopping him in mid-flight.

There was no going back. Only through the thorny thicket to the other side and outrage would only sharpen a temper they could ill afford. "What say you to that, my Lord of Gondor?" she asked. "Does the Steward mean us insult?"

Hurin blanched and bowed, eyes down and hand on chest. "Not so, my Lady! Not at all. I am instructed to express Gondor's appreciation for the patience of the Riddermark in this."

The Riddermark. She and Éomer exchanged a glance. The use of their name, not Rohan, was a diplomat's subtle ploy. Even a prickly Herustor could not fault his tact.

Her hand fell back to her side and made a fist. "So be it," she announced, letting her voice ring to the curious crowded in the street. "The weregild has not been paid in full. I, Éowyn, order that the Captain remains until we are recompensed. Attend me here inside a candlemark and have the Captain-General's mount prepared."

On her orders there was no stirrup cup. While the horses were watered and casks transferred, the company had all the hospitality they were due: a brief rest and food, enough to get them to the first crossroad. When the sun had begun in earnest its sail down to the west they reassembled: Éowyn and Éomer, Grimbold beside a still glowering Herustor, Annwn with her white-streaked raven hair plaited as a noblewoman of the Riddermark. And the two sons of the Steward standing dark as corbins amidst a flock of golden finches.

All eyes drew to her face as she turned to Boromir. The Captain-General was washed and dressed again in armour, his cuts and bruises fading, his chains struck off. He had thanked her gravely for his hospitality, kissed his cousin and brother farewell and now stood, dark hair lifting in the breeze.

So like to the proud warrior she remembered laughing at her cousin's side that she melted, just a little. "For the sake of the love Théodred bore you and your homeland, I give you one last chance," she murmured, keeping the words between them both. "Tell me why you did not come to me."

"My Lady." Boromir flushed unhappily; his words clipped by a frustration she knew in her brother too. Both were men of action. Both chaffed when tied by duties they did not seek. "I cannot. I am bound by a solemn oath. My life would be forfeit if I did so."

She searched his gaze before turning back, raising her head again to take in the sight below. A Tower guard held Boromir's stallion still. The wain was unloaded and all waited for her final word. The moment felt inevitable; time ran one way and one way only. Like a hidden path through high forage of the plain.

"Very well," she sighed. "In exchange, you forfeit something just as precious. Trust. And your brother's liberty."

On her signal Éomer drew the delicate scroll from his cloak and placed it into Boromir's startled hands. "'Tis said no greater oath was made by Men since Elendil swore allegiance and everlasting friendship to Gil-galad upon Amon Sul– but now the world darkens the Dúnadain find it easier to keep faith with the Firstborn than with us. An oath needs acts to honour it. At Poros, when Turin had the victory we paid with the blood of both our princes. When Ithilien at last fell under the shadow of the Nameless Land, my grandfather Thengel Thrice-Renowned, fought at the side of Turgon and Ecthelion. When Gondor calls we answer, yet when we call we have been refused. Déor-King learned this to his grief—spurned by Egalmoth when the Ring of Isengard was razed. Gram learned it too, in a long winter of waiting. And now we are attacked. Without reason. Or honour."

"Captain-General. Bear this as message to your father. He will understand what it means."

Boromir looked down on the burnished spindles, the blue and gold and flocked parchment of the vellum, brow furrowed in puzzlement, but he said naught, simply nodded solemnly and turned to lay a gauntleted hand upon his brother's shoulder.

"I will be back. I promise. Before the first snow flies."

Faramir, standing face impassive and shoulders back as though the day were no more than a routine revue, smiled at last at little and held those fingers firm. "I will keep you to it. There is a small boy whose naming day I would not miss."

With nothing further to be said, Boromir trod swiftly down the wide stone steps, took up his reins, and wheeled his stallion on Húrin's order. With one last look back and word of farewell, the company trotted out, past the lines of silent Rohirrim, past the tents of resettled folk. The empty wain jounced and trundled easily, the troop made much quicker progress now and soon they were at Snowbourne's banks; splashing through the shallows below a roof of growing clouds, to gain the wide road on the shore.

It was done. On the terrace the crowd dispersed. Herustor and Grimbold set off on errands of their own; Éomer excused himself to meet his men and still Éowyn did not depart. She stood, her own cloak blowing in the wind, watching the figure of the Steward's second son stand straight as an arrow, at attention and unmoving as his kinsmen rode away. Only when they were a fading smudge of grey down the Great West Road did he sit, very slightly carefully, on a nearby bench of tawny stone. His face was grave and still faced east.

_Béma's blessed horn_. Her heart went out in pity. She watched the aloneness coil about him like the sharp north wind, the few shafts of brighter sun snagging on his raven hair, shadowing the handsome features carved in strong, straight lines.

Long past any hope of seeing, he sat. At attention and still unmoving.

It took courage, she decided, for she, too, knew what it was to be left behind.

Surely that deserved some word of honour?

"You will soon catch chill," she offered, drawing near and noting he had no cloak. "The wind is shepherding the cloud and runs down through Nan Curunir. Do you not wish to go inside?"

"Your highness, forgive me." A man raised to nobility, Faramir immediately began to rise as she drew abreast but she waved him down: Éowyn was not her brother to worry every moment what the people saw. He nodded gratefully and settled again just a little stiffly, and she wondered if he could have done too much, but then his curiously clear grey gaze reached hers. "Nay, my lady, I am happy where I am for I am enjoying the brisk air before," a muscle jumped in his cheek, "I go to my new quarters."

_Ah_. For the first time she looked down and saw that a chain already snaked between his scuffed worn boots. Hardulf was being his usual efficient self. Call the blacksmith to strike off one brother's shackles and attach the other's on. It was a stark reminder of her conundrum. What was she to do with him? She had meant what she had said: as a prisoner Faramir merited the dungeon, yet now that felt unfair. As if she were visiting the father's punishment upon the son.

For a moment Éowyn drummed her fingers thoughtfully on her swordhilt. "My jailor says he is tired of playing chess with your brother. Perhaps I should take pity on the poor man. Omrun tells me you are absolutely merciless."

An embarrassed flush crept up Faramir's cheeks. "I have that reputation lady, but I assure you it is only with an opponent fierce in turn."

_Hmmm_. Honest when paid a compliment and unwilling to take undue advantage. Most unusual. Her heart told her this truthfulness was not an act-it _bothered_ him that she thought that he would be a spy. Moreover, so far that she had seen, he had kept his oath- had not made a single move against a guard, nor tried to gain his liberty.

Could he be trusted—with sensible oversight of course?

A glimmer of an idea blossomed in her breast.

"Captain, I understand you read Sindarin," she remarked.

He sat straighter up and inclined his head. "Of course."

"I once heard it said, incredulously but fondly, by your brother once when he was in this very hall, four horns deep in Théodred's best mead that you are known to actually enjoy whiling away the hours surrounded by many books."

His mouth quirked wryly. "You make it sound like a disreputable estate. Yes, I am a lover of lore. Were I not a soldier, I would have happily been a scholar."

_Béma_, what a thing to admit. She tried to picture him, hunched and slightly owl-eyed like Walda, ink stains on his fingers and swaddled in brown robes, but could not do it. He might not be a big, broad, powerful man like his brother, but neither was he weak. That face had fortitude and strength. A quieter one, but there nevertheless.

Éowyn took a breath and followed instinct to its end, made an offer whose ripples she could not see.

"Faramir of Gondor, in exchange for house arrest, will you help me with research in the archive? I have a problem and no archivist to hand."

"I will!"

And a smile like sunrise dawned upon his face as a swirling gust of wind danced with the dust upon the terrace.

~~~000~~~

Boromir of Gondor was not known to be a terribly patient man. The Steward's heir was brash and bold. Larger than life; and almost always at the front of things like battle columns or stag hunts, or drunken revelry in the Seven Stars. It was a constant in Minas Tirith's whirl; like his father's strategy or his brother's careful observation; so much that the excitedly cheering folk thronging the city's streets were unsurprised to find him alone as he swept below its storied gate.

The day was bright and fine, capped by the sort of warm blue sky ruffled only by the softest of caressing breeze. He cantered up the cobbled streets, urging Heruin as fast as he dared for _Valar_, he could not wait to reach the top.

There had been other anxious homecomings in his forty years- respites after months on wet patrol, worried briefings when the Enemy defiled Ithilien's glades, one turn when he had literally kissed the stone after an entirely miserable four months at sea.

But none felt so important, so restive, as this one did.

At the barracks he tumbled off Herluin's back, threw the stallion's reins to a beaming stable boy and took the Seventh's steps at a run. There was an audience above him on the curtain wall. He could hear their cheering, the trumpets pealing from on high, but all his focus was on one small knot below a waving banner.

A quite literally bouncing tunic of black and silver and a tall teal gown crowned by a half-tamed halo of curling raven hair. "Ada!"

Hallas broke free of his mother's long restraining fingers, launched himself into his father's arms and held on like a limpet on Belfalas rock. "Ada, you're back!"

"I am! I am!" _Dignity be damned_, he thought, burying his face in warm sable hair and hugging as hard as he would dare. No doubt there was a disapproving frown from the direction of his lord and father but a month had never felt so long. He _needed_ to hold his family. Now.

"Oh my boy, I've missed you so." With no regard for prying eyes he shifted Hallas to one hip and pulled in his smiling wife.

"Welcome home, my love," Merelan said, eyes dancing as her fingers laced in his to wrap their boy in a wide embrace. A few happy tears lay sprinkled amongst the freckles on her cheeks. She looked beautiful and bright and so blessedly just as he had left her a month before, it felt like his heart might burst.

"Mer." He kissed her long and well and breathed a contented sigh; felt an answering giggle against his chest where she rested her dark head. _Cheeky lass._ Neither motherhood nor station had tamed his coltish daughter of Lossarnach's loud and boisterous, famously unstuffy line. Lord Ganelon's eldest was witty and wise and always happy to poke holes in the Steward's reflexive formality. He loved that their world of careful ceremony -neither King nor courtier, ever mindful of aged responsibility- amused her. Just as it had ten years before when she stepped out of a carriage and straight into his heart.

Some arranged marriages were a chore. His was a gift straight from Lorien's brightest dreams.

Hallas impatiently wriggled to be let down, and so Boromir carefully set the boy upon the flagstone, straightened up and smoothed a loose black tendril that had escaped Merelan's delicate silver circlet. There would be meetings and a debriefing, no doubt a dinner, before they could seek their bed, but he could not wait.

"This night will feel like half an Age," he murmured, planting another kiss upon her forehead.

"Two!" she answered, raising a hand to tug at his scraggly beard. "Or more if you don't shave this off. Were you trying for rakish? If so, you have missed the mark."

He smoothed down the offending scruff. "You do not like it? I thought it makes me look rather dignified. Would you prove my brother right?"

"Happily!" she laughed. "The barren parts are a sign the entire enterprise is ill informed."

Merelan's eyes glinted teasingly but then an impatient '_Ahem_' sounded from behind. Reluctantly he dropped his arms.

Time to pay his Lord his due.

"Father!"

Boromir stepped away and was swiftly engulfed in Denethor's steady hug. "Welcome home, my son. I see your sojourn has done you no lasting ill."

"None at all. I am hale and well, as you can see."

"Good." Denethor gripped his shoulder, nodding approvingly, but glancing down as the clatter of many hooves in the circle below announced his cousin's return. The escort drew up and dismounted in the barracks forecourt. Hurin turned to hail them all, raising his hand, acknowledging the Steward's welcoming salute. "I see the journey was swift and safe. I presume it was not encumbered by any minor issues of diplomacy."

_Minor? _Boromir did his father mean by _that? _The most pressing diplomatic concern was the unpaid weregild of course, and his brother's absence was a problem the size of a mûmak.

He searched Denethor's ever stern grey gaze trying to gauge its import. The Steward would never make a public fuss, but surely this time some mention was required. The Steward and his second son _had_ parted with terse and heated words.

_"_Faramir has not come, of course," Boromir answered stiffly, about to explain that he had letters for them all, when a small, scented hand landed upon his arm.

"Why? Where is he?" Ysabet, Faramir's betrothed, stepped out from her place beside the courtiers and looked up from wide dark eyes. She was a sea of pearls and ribbons in swaths of amethyst, almost dizzying against the stone's stark white. "Did he have to ride a cart? Is his wound still troubling?"

He looked about and took in a flurry of puzzled frowns, dumbfounded at the implication. _Did she not know?_ _Had Father not explained a thing?_

"Ah…." He glanced worriedly from his wife, who knew everything that passed in every circle, to Ysabet who drank gossip like thirsty courtiers drank fine wine. Both of them looked bewildered. Merelan stood, head tilted quizzically, one hand protectively across Hallas' chest. Ysabet's fine black brows were furrowed.

Neither of them had a clue.

"He is…" Boromir began, but then Denethor's smooth baritone broke in.

"Not yet well enough to travel."

"No!" Ysabet's pretty face began to fall, her long lashes glinting like spray in a waterfall.

Her future father-in-law patted her consolingly on the arm. "I am very sorry, pet. There was no time to break the news. I have been much engaged, had hoped to bring word myself this morn. Rohan's physicians simply insist that he not be moved. Faramir must stay and convalesce more in their good care. "

_But that __was a lie?!_ Boromir stood in shock. His father had publically told a falsehood? About something all too easily disproved? Denethor, son of Ecthelion, was many things—stiff, severe, even remote at times- but he was not a liar and most definitely not a fool. The repercussions could not be good. Boromir imagined Omrun bristling at the slight to his official skills, the stream of colourful Haradi that would ensue; the offense that Edoras would take when word came to their door. Falsely laying blame would widen a gulf already made sea-sized by suspicion.

As if sensing the brewing storm, Merelan stepped near to take Ysabet's hand in hers. "Darling, do not despair. Boromir has said he is on the mend."

"Yes, and…" There was a cough. Above the women's twin dark heads a pair of implacable grey eyes bored warningly into his own. He was not to say a thing to his family or the court. "He was…already improving when I left," Boromir finished, awkwardly.

At least_ that_ wasn't entirely a lie. "You understand it is for the best?" Denethor added, as his son marvelled at his new skill. The Steward's expression was a picture of bland concern. "That all will be well in time?"

"No!"

Ysabet whirled in a swirl of scent and silk, a handkerchief pressed to her lips, now too distraught to speak. A small storm of noisy weeping fled back down the raked gravel of the path as fast as lilac slippers would allow. The startled courtiers and guards scattered like skittles before her, giving way, but wisely pretending not to notice.

Boromir groaned inside as a careful, expectant quiet descended once again. With that audience, before nightfall everyone in the City would know the news—there was no way this scene would pass unnoted.

"Ada?"

He bent down to a small earnest face, afraid that he knew the question. "Hallas?"

"Uncle Fara will be well? He will be home soon, won't he?"

Not for the first time did Boromir regret the policy he and Merelan had designed- to never hide things from their son. The hurt—as he had suffered learning far too late his mother's illness was beyond all help—could be damaging, but Hallas was a quick-witted child. One who read the currents around him as another would know a favourite fishing stream. "I do not know," he answered slowly, raising a brow in the direction of his father's official grey brocade. Beneath the flowing robe was suit of heavy mail—a way for a busy ex-soldier to keep up his strength and remember the weight of responsibility. What would he choose to say? The truth? Or another platitude?

Denethor silently fingered the gold finial on the Steward's rod, stalling for time as his nimble mind chose what to hide, what to reveal.

"Daer-ada?"

The pennants fluttered lazily overhead and the fountain tinkled loud. At last there was a shrug. "That depends upon Rohan's Queen," Denethor answered slowly, "but I expect it will be soon enough. Now run along to your lessons while your father attends me in my study. He shall be all yours before high tea."

Evidently, they were dismissed.

Boromir gathered his lady and his son, walked back the Steward's palace, but it was a decidedly quieter parade.

He had no idea what to make of his welcome home.

~~~000~~~

After the briefest of hurried washes and a change out of dusty clothes, Boromir strode down the long echoing hall to his father's study. After the wood floors and packed paths about the Golden Hall his boot heels sounded loud upon the stone-made him almost want to grit his teeth, but soon enough he was at the familiar ancient oak door.

He saluted to the guards, pushed on the carved tree and crowns and entered the dim lit space. "Father, I…"

The sight he found made him pull abruptly up.

The room was much as it always was: warm and close inside, with heavy velvet draperies half-pulled against the brightness of the day; imbued with the scent of leather everywhere—books climbing to the ceiling, desk blotter full and deep chairs worn from decades of heavy use.

The latter were unexpectedly already occupied.

"My lords."

He nodded to members of Gondor's small council arrayed like ornaments around the room and looked about for an empty seat.

Lord Niged of Anórien sat closest to the hearth, his proud face on its strong-lined bones grave and set. He was lithe and fair-skinned like those of the north but his eyes were green not grey-a muddied shade that, though it was not dark, gave a curious sense of shadow; as if one could never glean what moved behind. Devrin, the eldest son of Pelargir's ailing Lord Aldair, perched upon a faded gilt settee with one long arm laid insouciantly along its back. He was tanned and dark-eyed, round of face, but compared to Niged a better known commodity. Faramir had suffered his jealous taunts and entirely questionable wit on their first joint commission and Boromir had since made it a point to quietly keep up on his affairs-professional and domestic. Devrin evidently chased skirts and coin with equal enthusiasm.

_Where __are the others?_ The small council was made of eight: the Steward and his sons and principal fiefs of Gondor. Hurin should be there, and his Uncle Imrahil and father-in-law Ganelon if they were in town.

At first he thought there was no other, but then as he lowered himself into the armchair twin to Niged's, papers rustled in the deeper recess by the courtyard wall. A goatee and dark locks were half sunk in shadow.

Before he could peer more Denethor rose from behind his expansive desk. "Captain General, you are well come. Take some food and drink and give us your report. Anórien and Pelargir are most concerned, as am I. You have seen with your own eyes the state of Rohan and its governance. Will you elaborate? And Faldorn will you scribe?"

This last was said to the man he did not recognize. The scribe (for what else could be?) inked his white seagull quill and leaned forward attentively. Could Ivanduil have taken ill? His father's usual secretary was nigh as old as his master but always spry and sharp. Another puzzle that there was no more time to ponder: Denethor's fingers were tapping impatiently on the desk.

Boromir poured a heartily foaming mug from the waiting jug of ale and proceeded to give the benefit of his observations, starting with the skirmish with the Dun-Men. He told of the arrival of Éowyn's eored and the deserted Halifirien, moved on to a detailed account of Edoras and the Dunlending camp. By the time he finished he was parched and his stomach grumbling. He reached for a piece of fruit.

"Lieutenant Mablung's account you must also have," he offered, around a largish bite of peach.

"Yes," replied Denethor, "but he saw none of the aftermath. The Dunlending fort, what is its state now?"

"Unchanged." Boromir described the rough stockade, its layout and the garrison but one thing he held back: the trophies perched outside. The council might not yet be in his father's full confidence; would not know of the other, less official reason for the assault. How much did they know? Of the irregularity in the treasury and Faramir's true position? Likely nothing.

He waited in the ensuing silence, sipping at his ale, watching his father's unruffled gaze. The Steward seemed to be waiting too: gauging his councillors' reaction.

Devrin was the first to speak. "So Rohan indeed dances to a new tune with a girlish Queen who is inexperienced and easily swayed."

_Tulkas' rod_. It was an answer of a sort—just not a particularly helpful one. "Your pardon, my lord, that is not what I said. Not at all." Boromir shook his head. "Yes the Dunmen are allied with the Rohirrim but the Queen knows her own mind, her brother his as well, and they work together, to the betterment of all. The kingdom suffered more than we knew," he added, thinking of the heart-breaking row of grave markers. "A year is passed, but the shadow of the plague is long. They are pressed to keep Isengard back and Saruman has become no benevolent master to those who aid his goals. He is inflicting suffering on all those from Nan Curunir to the Westfold, including the Dunlendings."

A small flock of eyebrows flew up. "Pressed, or capitulated?" asked Devrin, suspiciously.

"Pressed," said Boromir, firmly. "Lord Hurin can also describe the nature of the camps. There are refugees also from Riddermark. The northern reach is overrun."

He looked cautiously askance to his father. Denethor was nodding. "We shall ask in due time," his father assured. "As to their intentions, we need to assess more on in this."

"Indeed," said Niged, picking up on the thread, "but would they if threatened give up the Captain to the Enemy? He is a valuable bargaining chip. I could scarce credit that any child of Thengel's line would harm a hair on the head of a Steward's son, but these are uneasy times. And he is not yet well enough to return."

_So the __council were __also kept in the dark__?_ For some reason of his father's own? Boromir caught an almost imperceptible shake of grey head as he drew breath to speak. "Éowyn gave me her personal assurance on that score. Faramir is improving and receiving the best of care."

A wan smile, like a sliver of sun between heavy cloud, passed over Niged's worried face. "That is welcome news at least! Though, I daresay he would be happier back here in his own bed even it if were in the Houses." The older man sat back. "I must ask, where do we stand then on the troops? My lands adjoin Rohan's. Can I expect incursions at some point? Our failure will embolden them."

Boromir immediately shook is head. "I do not believe so."

"What you believe and what is true may be two different things."

The quiet interjection came from the corner. Faldorn sat with quill poised in the air and eyes bright. With his Numenorean nose and full dark brows, he looked like a hawk eager to swoop and take a strike.

Boromir opened his mouth to object but Denethor cut in; pressed a gnarled finger to his forehead. "Observations serve us, thank you, master Faldorn. You do well to remind that we need knowledge informed by our eyes, first and foremost."

True, but what Boromir had said was from the benefit of his own experienced assessment. He looked at the scribe again. The man's tanned, handsome face suggested he was southern, as did his speech. "Master, excuse me, we are unacquainted."

"Apologies Captain-General." Devrin quickly made an introduction. "Boromir, son of Denethor, High Warden of the White Tower, meet Faldorn, son of Adorn, my new secretary. Father could not be without Renyan. His illness makes him easily confused and familiar faces are a balm."

Ah. That explained the southern lineage. Boromir nodded to him politely then turned to Devrin, feeling blessed to have not had a relative succumb to the shaking sickness. "It is indeed tragic that so formidable a man as Aldair is taken low, shorn of purpose in his prime. You have my condolences."

"My thanks." The younger man nodded, jaw set and fingers drumming on the seat back, looking anything but grateful. "As to your query, Niged, I think a show of strength is in order. Lord Steward I suggest you move two companies from Cair Andros and Osgiliath to Anórien."

"Surely that is not necessary?" Boromir blurted out. "Reducing the eastward cohort when the threat to west is uncertain at the best will leave us needlessly exposed."

Niged crossed his arms and looked entirely unconvinced. "I wish I shared your confidence."

"Hurin would if he were here. And Uncle. He knows Éomer well."

Devrin snorted derisively. "Your Uncle is not here and he refused to send a single knight with you. Perhaps he has come to know the Crown Prince a bit too well."

"What are you implying?!"

"Nothing. But it would be unsurprising if he grew overfondhad grown more fond of Rohan in Éomer's exile."

_Just like his daughter_. Devrin did not say it aloud but Boromir could see it in the lordling's eyes. _Smug bastard_. Yes, Imrhail had shared his brother's qualms and yes, Lothiriel had become friendly with Eomer, but his uncle was the most honest man on council; always looking to others' benefit before his own.

The idea of questioning his loyalty made Boromir irate.

The two men bristled like a pair of porcupines until their Steward abruptly arose, leaving them to scramble up. "Enough," rumbled Denethor. "Imrahil made his reservations known. We overrode him. Pelargir has said they stand ready to help and we shall avail ourselves of the aid. My mind is made up. Have a shipful of soldiers moved to Harlond."

Devrin nodded eagerly and gave a bow. "At once, my Lord."

While Boromir stood fuming, still processing this unexpected turn, his father inclined his head toward the door. "My lords, I thank you. Now, pray you, leave us be. I would have words with my son."

One by one, they departed; leaving the study quiet and clear; once again the familiar place of Boromir's childhood. He turned his back and took in the heavy twining trees carved in the marble of the mantelpiece; the soft rug of greens and blues and leaping waves woven by their mother in happier, energetic years. How often had he sat on it cross-legged, reading a book to Faramir or stood, at attention with his brother at his back, giving their report?

Too many to count. But most assuredly he had never stood there and heard his Uncle insulted so.

"Will you take some wine?" Denethor had moved to the small sideboard, stood holding a silver flagon in his hand.

"Nay." He needed wits about him; a clear head for what was sure to be an unpleasant conservation. He watched his father pour a deep red vintage into a crystal goblet and set the decanter down.

"Out with it, my son," Denethor announced, raising the cup and taking a long drink. "I can feel your opprobrium from here."

_An order not to refuse. _"Uncle does not give advice coloured by Lothíriel's infatuations."

"True. Although, I gathered this was something more."

_It was_? He'd not heard _that_, only that the Princess and the Exile had spent many happy hours in the stables sharing a love of horses and their breeding. Lothíriel could recite the lineage of the Dol Amroth greys back two dozen generations. If she had lost her heart that was entirely welcome news.

But none of it was relevant to her father's vote.

He drew a deep breath and drove straight at the niggling point. "Why are you letting Devrin spew such rot? And giving them false news? They clearly know nothing of the ransom."

Denethor's brows furrowed as he threw back his drink, set the cup on the board and poured another measure in. "I have my reasons."

"And they are?"

"Not needed by you right now."

The standard non-answer employed when their father did not wish a fight. Boromir ground his teeth. This was walking on eggshells, inviting further ire, but was too important to back down. "I do not like having to lie to my son, much less my wife. It is not a ruse that can be kept up for long."

"But long enough." One skeptical grey brow raised. "Subterfuge did not bother you so much when inventing excuses for every servant girl you chased."

Boromir felt a bright flush steal up his cheeks. He'd not deny it-it was all too true- but that was a rambunctious lifetime ago. Marriage, and Merelan, had made him a settled and contented man. "Perhaps my little brother has rubbed off on me."

Denethor shook his head. "A not entirely salubrious development. Faramir is more loyal to his own counsel and perception of the truth than is advisable."

"Truly? You would question his loyalty?!"

The goblet landed back on the wood with a resounding thud. "He has been insubordinate!"

"He has done everything you asked!"

His father's eyes flashing darkly. "If his Rangers had put more effort on intelligence for the raid, perhaps it would have ended well. He was insufficiently committed from the first."

"That is entirely unfair! " Boromir rashly let his voice rise up but he would be damned if he would have his brother painted with this too. "If you would blame anyone, blame me," he insisted, running a frustrated hand through his hair, dearly wishing that Imrahil was there. His uncle's calming presence had forestalled many an unpleasant spat. "The command was mine—not Faramir's. No amount of scouting would have discovered the eored a candlemark away at first light."

Denethor scoffed outright. "Don't be ridiculous."

"It is the truth!" Boromir threw up his hands and felt his tired shoulder twinge. Was this why Imrahil was kept from council? To punish him for his honest advice? And why Faramir was still sitting far from home? "Tell me the weregild is not retaliation. How long will you keep him there?"

"Until I am satisfied by his news. " Denethor's tone dropped to one that owed much to Mindolluin's eternal snows. "Are you clear on this, my son? _I _decide what is best for Gondor. Not you. And not your Ithil-struck, wizard-led, little brother."

_Valar's grace_. There was nothing to do but say the words. "Yes, my Lord."

"Good."

Denethor came to the desk to take his customary seat, obviously mollified. He pulled out an order affixed with his plain seal and offered it across. "I have given command of the Rangers to Mablung in Faramir's absence. As Captain-General, what say you?"

_An official promotion?_ Boromir felt his stomach sink. There'd be no need for such unless Faramir would be gone for long. "He is green in command but a doughty fighter. And knows the refuges exceptionally well. He will need support," he concluded warily.

"See you do so." Denethor took back the order; looking up when there was no immediate reply. "Is there aught else you have for my own ears?"

There was, but It was clear to Boromir they had tangled more than enough. His father's mood was chancy. Further argument could do no good.

"More observations and considerations that should be shared, but they can await until the morrow," he offered, bowing and making ready to take his leave but then something stiff dug into his ribs.

The scroll! He had entirely forgotten it in the fuss.

He hesitated a heartbeat before offering the package across. ""There is also this. The Queen gave it to me and said you would know of its import."

"Did she?" Denethor eyed the aged parchment suspiciously. "A moldy scroll? From before the time of your son's namesake, if the hafts are original. Keep it. I have not the time for curiosities right now."

Trust their father to know the source: Hallas the first had been Ruling Steward after Cirion, almost five hundred years before. That made it very old, indeed.

Boromir rather more carefully tucked the precious piece back and sought the door. When he had a hand on the knob, Denethor spoke up. "Boromir, give my regrets to Merelan. I shall dine in the Tower tonight."

_On his first night back from captivity?_ The welcome was feeling chillier as the day wore on.

He nodded once, ducked quickly into the hall, unsure if the bigger part of him was aggrieved. Or simply tiredly relieved.

~~~000~~~

Dinner in the Palace family dining room thankfully proved to be an entirely relaxed affair. There was laughter and good conservation, for his Aunt and Uncle and young cousins had made it there; all his favourite dishes piled high on the groaning table; the best of their not inconsiderable store of wine and a tempting not one, but two, decanters of fine Belfalas brandy.

All of it conspired to improve his mood. The cousins teased. The ladies giggled about his beard. Hallas sat wide-eyed and thrilled, determined to not a miss a thing until nurse came to take him off to a very delayed bed. Ysabet, who had her own suites next to theirs, had recovered sufficiently to have an appetite, but after dessert she pleaded a headache and sought her bed.

"Poor thing, she does look pale," noted Aunt Ivriniel, her thoughtful gaze following the girl out the door. "She must be so distressed. Bad news flows down the circles swifter than water down the slopes. I heard it already rumoured as we rode up that Faramir was on death's door."

"Blackguards," muttered Imrahil into his wine, but his sister, the steadiest of sunny breezes even beset by unwelcome gale, shook her head. "Entirely predictable. But how is he? Really?"

"Mending," answered Boromir. "Enough to walk about, though he tires faster than he should. Annwn is helping to nurse him."

"Most gratifying news. She'll know to tie him down," concluded her mother with a nod. "They'll be no getting him to rest otherwise. Your father has kept both of you running pillar to post for far too long. I do wish we were here to greet you when you arrived. I might have given Denethor a word or two. He should have sent a healer of our own."

"Are you offering?" grinned his uncle. "It would be a chance for a reunion."

"I would much rather it were here," argued Ivriniel and Boromir grimaced wryly, toying with his spoon.

If only the choice and place of healer were the rub. "I do not believe it would have made a difference."

"Is he really a prisoner in a dungeon?" his cousin Amrothos asked a little breathlessly, around a mouthful of honeycake. "Saelon at the stables said he is kept for ransom because Rohan has become a land looking to Orthanc."

Imrahil's objection was immediate. "Amrothos! I'll thank you to not repeat rank gossip like a fishwife on the docks."

The boy coloured instantly. "Well it is true. That is what is being said. And Saelon's father is in the guard."

As if that made him immune to rumour. "I'll not believe it," insisted Imrahil, eyes dark with outrage. "Even if Rohan has been provoked."

"Nor I!" Lothíriel had two spots of pink high upon her cheeks. "Éomer would never do such a thing!"

Boromir and his uncle shared a look. Duress could lead kingdoms to do many formerly unthinkable things, even bowing a knee to a new master. Unsettling indeed, but even more so how quickly that ill idea had run rife in the streets.

"I am sure Éomer would not, sweetheart," said Ivriniel, reassuringly. "Boromir has said Faramir is not ill treated. You have no cause for concern. But it may be a while until he can come home," she cautioned.

"Then I shall send him a letter straightaway."

"It will be read," warned Amrothos. "Best not say anything about your Prince."

"Rothos!" Lothiriel blushed again. "Éomer wouldn't.. I mean Éowyn never would…." Her tongue tripped over the words in haste. "He isn't _my_ prince. He's just a friend."

"Of course." Merelan leaned over from the table's end and reached for the flustered young woman's hand. "But he is helping rule the country now and we know not exactly what footing we are on. Faramir's mail will be read."

Boromir nodded glumly. "And if there is aught of concern they will not give it to him." _Tulkas' rod_ this was going to prove a problem. Their father expected intelligence and they had, as yet, no way to be certain to get it through. He clenched his wineglass, worrying at the problem and only half-heartedly listening as Amrothos tried his best to cheer his sister up.

"Loth, your compassion does you credit. I am sure Faramir will be thrilled by whatever words get through. You have always been his favourite."

She brightened instantly. "He always was the best babysitter at family gatherings."

"Because he let you run wild while he had his nose in a book!"

The entire table laughed at that; Imrahil so long and hard his eyes were streaming at the end. "Nienna's mercy. That boy has the patience of an Ent. Now that I think of it, watching over you two miscreants was excellent training for a scout. You were never still. And you were never where you were supposed to be."

More quiet chuckling ensued, but Lothíriel, who had been slumped a little dejectedly in her seat, sat straight up. "That's it!"

"What?"

"The Ranger code! They could read his letters and see nothing of concern!"

"What code?!" asked Boromir and Imrahil in worried unison. All messages from Ithilien were encrypted- it was one of the first skills a Ranger learned—but not something they spoke openly about.

"Do not look at me like that, Cousin," chided Lothíriel, waging one slim finger. "Fara would never divulge a secret. It is not a real code, only one we made it up for fun one morning when it was raining cats and dogs. Faramir was trying to study in the archive and I admit I was pestering him."

"No!"

A glare was thrown in the direction of her mocking elder brother. Lothiriel arose, strode to the little desk that stood by the sitting room door and hurriedly scribbled down some words. "Faramir would write the coded messages and hide them in 'secret' drop off points. I had to memorize the key, from the letters of a word. You moved its letters several spaces in a grid to find what the real letter was. I ran all over hunting for the clues and devising ones of my own. It was ever so much fun."

"What was the word?" asked a curious Merelan.

"Hyarmendacil. See."

She held the simple algebraic substitution under Boromir's nose. It was straightforward, the first real cipher they would learn, but not the one a Ranger put into practice. That was far more difficult- an intricate puzzle using far more demanding multiple word links. One that would take days too long to solve, especially if one was being watched.

"Would he remember it?" he asked a little doubtfully. "Do you remember exactly how it went?"

"Yes! We played the game for days- it was absolutely, hideously wet. And Faramir never forgets a thing."

_Well, that much was true_. Boromir rubbed at his nape. The idea was tempting. The system was simple enough in theory and founded on a word unlikely to be uppermost in a Rohirrim's mind. "If you write him a letter talking of your favourite childhood game would that help him recollect?"

She nodded excitedly. "I think so! If I reminded him that we played it in the library. The spring that Erchirion broke his leg."

"Don't remind me," grumbled Amrothos. "I had to do all his chores,"

Lothíriel rolled her eyes. "You weren't the only one, silly." She turned to Boromir. "When do you need it?"

"As soon as possible. Idon takes word of our safe return in several days."

Lothíriel reached for the quill again, chatting about grids and test letters, and Boromir began to feel a bit less deflated, but then her father frowned in a way that augured more words to come.

"Merelan, my dear, would you kindly shepherd everyone to the sitting room?" asked Imrahil. "Boromir and I have some brandy to get through."

_They do?_

"Just you?" asked Amrothos, looking longingly at the decanters along with Merelan and his smiling Aunt.

Imrahil, famously soft-hearted where his family was concerned, gave in at once. "Very well. Take the larger bottle. The smaller should be enough for us. "

"Excellent!"

The sound of chairs scraping and happy bantering grew loud as a warm hand fell on Boromir's shoulder.

Imrahil held a pair of crystal glasses and the half-full, tempting flagon. "Nephew, I suggest we take some air."

"Suggest or order?"

"Firmly encourage."

Boromir dutifully followed Imrahil's retreating back out onto the private terrace, to a curved stone bench that sat beneath a slim ash tree heavy with its red bounty. There were no torches lit, but the climbing moon and glow of candles from the hall made it welcoming enough.

They sat and the Prince poured two large measures of deep amber liquid, passing one across and downing a substantial swig. Then he began to speak. "Why, my lad, do you need so badly to get secret messages to a Captain is who merely taking time to nurse a healing wound?"

_Valar_. Trust a son of Adrahil, the old Sea Fox, to be instantly on a scent.

Boromir shifted uncomfortably, wondering what he could say. His uncle was always nothing if not perceptive: he, like Faramir, shared the Dol Amroth trait of dreaming true. But parts of this woeful mess were secret from everyone. "You were not in Father's study this afternoon."

Imrahil saluted with his glass. "You noticed. I was not invited. Even though I rode in in due time." He looked sidelong and caught Boromir's troubled gaze. "_I_ have noticed that you have spent much of this evening glowering at your plate. As if an Orc print were there, not Gelin's most excellent cooking."

"It is complicated."

"With Denethor it always is."

_True. _And increasingly difficult to felt as if he were bound by Rohan's spectacularly intricate knotwork: twist on twist on yet more twist—to find at the end he was chasing his own tail.

He took a hefty gulp, feeling the sudden need of more fire to brace the unhappy truth. "How is it I have been scarce away a month and so much has changed?" he sighed.

Imrahil tilted his grey head. "In particular?"

"I have come back to find that clod Devrin on council and Father making economies with the truth."

"Making economies? I'll remember that." His uncle chuckled before sobering, stretching out his long legs and setting the cup aside. "Aldair has taken to his final bed, too enfeebled to feed or clothe himself. It is a truly tragic turn. But as he has only the one son, Devrin takes his place—a young man so skilled he has made an art out of not understanding."

Boromir snorted, a little relieved to find Imrahil had the same unflattering opinion. "And this Faldorn? Do you trust him?"

"Not as far as I could skip a stone across the Bay. And at that I am decidedly out of practice." Imrahil ruefully shook his head. "This, I assume, has something to do with the urgency of your ill-fated mission and I am the more sorry I could not change your father's mind. Denethor, of late, grows strange. He listens to only sycophants who give him what they perceive he wants. And will not brook dissent from even me." He pressed again. "What truths?"

_Tulkas' rod_. There would be no deflecting his uncle on the hunt.

On impulse Boromir pushed up off the cool stone, came to stand at the northern wall, looking out to the gathering dark and the far deep of the Druadan. The stars this night were bright; like jewels on blue-black velvet, but already five days away they were subtly different from Edoras.

He wanted to trust this noble man whom he had followed all his life, but should he? _Would he?_

The last of the brandy seared down to his stomach and sealed his choice.

"Faramir is prisoner at Father's behest, not Rohan's as he has said." Boromir turned to a shocked, wide-eyed Imrahil. "When Ganelon is here, when my father-in-law arrives, I shall tell you more."

~~~000~~!

"Love, what are you doing up?"

Merelan's whispered words floated soft in the hush of their bedroom as she slipped her arms about his waist, set her face against the soft silk of the thin robe on his back.

It was late. Well past moonset, and Boromir stood at the great arched window, watching the same vibrant stars and futilely worrying all the more. He reached down and pulled her around to nestle close toagainst his chest "Sorry my heart, did I wake you?"

"The bed was cool."

And she, his southern flower, was graced with always cold hands and feet. He wrapped strong arms about her shoulders to share his warmth and pressed a kiss to her tousled hair.

She smelled of home—of soap and wine and jasmine. The rare perfume she daubed on nights she wanted to keep him up.

"You are a wonder."

"And you take on too much." She pulled a little back to look up and set a palm against his cheek. "Father's censure bothers you."

"Yes," he admitted, having shared that much; that Denethor had heaped scorn upon his youngest. "For a visionary, he has a blind spot the size of Khazad-dûm where my little brother is concerned."

"Your father and Faramir are like the metal of two lodestones, so much alike in some ways that they actually repel."

"And the differences that remain are those perfectly designed to irritate!"

Merelan sighed softly. "You miss him."

"I do. This is not like some far flung patrol where I expect no news, trusting to his skills and sight."

"But is there cause to be concerned?" she asked, laying a worried hand upon his chest. "I took Saelon's tattling for simply that. Malicious gossip."

"Nay, nothing to worry unduly about. Faramir is safe and healing and idle tongues will talk." He enfolded her fingers in his own bigger palm, willing her cares away. They both knew the court would make sport of any news but this cut too close to home. "Do you think that Ysabet is well?" he asked, deftly changing the subject, thinking of how lonely the nights had been before her; his Mer. "She left the party rather early."

"That one?" Merelan gave a little huff. "She is right as rain. The display of waterworks was purely for a single audience."

"Father? Truly?" They had looked awfully realistic to him. "You doubt her sincerity?"

"Every moment of the day." Merelan stared down his look of doubt. "Do you not have eyes and ears, Boromir? In the months since Ysabet arrived I have sat for hours in the solar listening to her twittering and watching her stitches crawl drunkenly across the cloth. She cares only for herself. And being the Steward's son's betrothed."

"Well, yes, she is a little young."

"Hardly! Ysabet was born older than her days. One half of Minas Tirith would sell the moon for her smile, the other half the sun, and neither notice her words are as cutting as her cheekbones." She gave a little shake of her head. "Even Denethor is not immune. I could not imagine a more ill match for your thoughtful, careful brother. She arranges men as easily as flowers and lies. But _he_ will not be one of them."

"Oh dear." Privately, Boromir thought Ysabet too spoiled, but that was not surprising. She was the only child and heir of the aged Lord of Lebennin. Installed in the palace as they had no townhouse, pampered and feted like a prize pony going to fair. "But he agreed to the match. Love could grow in time."

Merelan gave him a fond, exasperated smile. "I adore your optimism. Ysabet is a gadfly and Faramir loves gentler pursuits. She will be impatient with his lack of ambition. He will become bored of her."

"He told you that?"

"Your brother tells me many things."

He chuckled low. "And here I believed myself chief of intelligence. How can I compete with my wife?"

Her grey eyes shone. "Slowly, but eventually you will get there."

Merelan squeaked as he dropped his nose into the scent and soft curls at her collarbone, sighing happily. "What did I do to deserve you, my love? Bright, and shrewd, and beautiful. With the most glorious hair in all of Middle-Earth," he added, knowing how much she fretted about this one small vanity.

His wife was not beautiful as the court would gauge such things: too narrow of face, too freckled; with hair that curled in defiance of the fashion.

But he adored every inch.

He tucked a stray tendril back behind her ear. "It will not sit still," she grumbled.

"Do I complain when it trails across my chest?"

It had been the right thing to say. She set lips and soft gliding hands to distracting him from his cares and he, wise man that he was, answered as only he knew how.

* * *

Oh I am enjoying writing happy Boromir! And uhm-have the prospect of Faramir chained in a library as a New Years prezzie-grin...

Thank you to messyink, blueoctober and easyyourmind for following and easyyourmind and busya for favouriting.

Huge thank yous to Lia, Haarajot, Carawyn, Altariel and Gwynnyd for super helpful comments and encouragement

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and have a wonderful new years all.


	7. Opportunities

The next morning began as it was not infrequently wont to do in the Steward's household—with an entirely quiet argument.

Boromir had washed and dressed, luxuriated in a proper bath, and kissed his beaming wife as he sat down at the sunny breakfast table. The sky was bright and clear—jubilant at his return said Merelan, watching Hallas almost neatly devour the cheese and meat. Perhaps that was what distracted him, perhaps it was the morning's plans-he felt rested and relieved, centred really, now that there was a way to communicate with Edoras.

All of it conspired to erase the first cautionary lessons of his previous reception.

"I have decided to move Tarcene from Lossarnach and Edin from the barracks here, instead of Cair Andros and Osgiliath," he announced when he had reduced the excellent pastries to mere crumbs. "We cannot spare Mablung, nor any of my scouts."

"Really?"

Across the table, Denethor frowned and folded his papers down. He had been hiding behind a folio and a full teacup, already intent upon his day and his answer was mild. Deceptively so. His younger son might have recognized its warning, but he was three days ride away.

"Why, pray tell, should you do that?"

"Because the reports suggest an entire division of Orcs has left the Gate for Minas Morgul," Boromir explained reasonably enough. He had thought long and hard about the order, reluctant to rob Osgiliath to send men north. This solution assuaged everyone- the Steward and Lord Niged who wished Anórien reinforced and the Captain-General who had an uneasy. "We know not their intent. If we wish to bolster Anórien t'would be best to move from other less risky parts."

This change was, of course, entirely in his authority as Captain-General. At first his father's reply was soft. "Faldorn believes they are to reinforce the pass across the Ephel Duath, not confront Ithilien. We need to watch the east flank of Rohan, to gather information about who moves through the forest eaves. My order stands as made."

Boromir blinked._ Faldorn? What did a scribe from Pelargir know about movements of the Enemy? _He shared a look with Merelan. She shrugged gently, no more aware than he."But…"

"No buts." The Steward—and also the father- swiftly raised a hand to cut off this small protest. His tone had changed; his brows now crashed together ominously, like thunder clouds above Pelennor's low plain. "My son, you will do as we agreed the day before. Exactly."

The admonition in the last word stung. Boromir recognized it- had heard it most oft employed for Faramir. He silently ground his teeth in newfound sympathy. "My Lord, I will."

He stiffly pushed his chair straight back, bent to kiss Merelen's soft cheek and Hallas' head, then bowed to take his leave.

"Where do you go?" asked Denethor, not looking up, but turning back tohis cooling tea.

"I have an errand to attend."

"See that you are back before the noon bell rings."

"My Lord."

He went with alacrity before any other orders could appear, striding swiftly out of the Palace and down the Seventh's stair to the southern sun-filled street that housed his Uncle's smart town house. There he was shown by the butler to his Aunt Ivriniel's small but serviceable study, stacked to the ceiling with herbals and healing lore. Imrahil waited there, and Lothíriel. They had the pretty inlaid desk piled high with blank parchments and writing instruments. And the blue leather primer that had been the bane of his schoolwork years.

"I see Denethor's temper has not improved," remarked Imrahil, not failing to notice the stiff set of his shoulders or the grim look upon his face. "What is it now?"

Boromir flopped onto a riotously flowered chair and pulled a face. "Troop deployments. He wouldn't listen to me."

Imrahil snorted softly. "He doesn't listen to anyone of late. Except Faldorn."

Faldorn. The name was beginning to give him a headache. That his shrewd and observant uncle had also noticed this shift meant that there was another conversation that they should have, but it would have to wait. For now, the letters to Edoras were the priority.

He leaned over to examine what Lothíriel had already produced. A circle of letters in Tengwar was neatly drawn upon one sheaf, with another smaller circle inside. The inner letters were shifted five spaces long; A to F, B to G, in sequence down to Z. It was the shift they were to employ.

"It looks simple enough," Boromir mused, picking up a spare quill, watching her swiftly add another sentence to the three pages that were filled with small tight script. It seemed straightforward enough but Faramir would need to follow exactly the same course. How would he remember? It was an awfully long time ago.

"How does the recipient know what number of spaces to employ?" he asked.

"From the number of letters in a set code word," answered Lothíriel, swiftly sanding the parts already done to set the ink. There was a dark smudge on her nose and ink stains along her slender fingers. "We did use different words on different days. Hyarmendacil was the first. I've picked the last one that we used."

"And it is?" asked Imrahil, curiously.

"Pansy."

"For the flower?"

Lothíriel blushed brightly. "No, for my pet rabbit."

They all laughed. Boromir grinned, remembering a small red and white fluffy menace in a long line of rescued pets. His cousin had a soft heart for strays.

"Faramir can't possibly have forgotten that!"

"No indeed!" Imrahil, beside, was chuckling. Pansy, an experienced escape artist, had once devoured an entire embroidered hankerchief. A prized and priceless blue poppy. And Faramir's first efforts at longer poetry.

It was the only time he had ever heard his little brother shout.

"You are reminding him of your summer games?"

Lothíriel nodded. "Yes, and then I switch languages for using the code. I don't imagine many in Rohan can read Quenya, even if they happen to know Tengwar."

Boromir raised his brows, throwing his little cousin an admiring glance. Few in Rohan had any lettering at all and fewer still Tengwar—Rohan deservedly prided itself on its song. The runes sometimes used in the markets or meeting places for Rohirric were simple; employed for Dale speech and that of Bree. It seemed a good solution. The cipher code could be broken if one knew the shift—it was why his own troops used a scytale too—a wax cylinder with parchment wrapped around, further jumbling up the code. Fast, but hopeless if the recipient did not have an identical piece to employ.

He set to work on his own letter, laboriously shifting the tengwar, consulting the open primer constantly for he had never retained Quenya beyond a few rude words and easy greetings. That was what scribes were for. And admirers of lore like his bookish brother.

The small group worked silently and steadily. By the mid-morning bell they were almost done. Boromir stretched and sanded his work, rolled some stiffness out of his shoulders and then brought out the other reason for his visit. The scroll. He wanted Imrahil's impression.

If his father did not care, his uncle surely would.

He began to unroll the stiff aged sheaves.

Imrahil sat up, eyes bright, as the indigo and gilt appeared. "What is this beautiful thing?" His fingers reverently touched the carved wooden stars and sailing ships. Dol Amroth's Prince had always appreciated beauty-anything with ships or seas or the stars an experienced mariner sailed by. He whistled low, taking in the intricate border that ran down the scroll's stiff edge. "It is a work of art. Where did you get it?"

"A 'gift' from Rohan's Queen," Boromir explained, gingerly setting a glass paperweight against the spindles, holding the first few pages free. "I want to know what it says. Eowyn claimed that father would know its import, but he says he hasn't time."

Imrahil looked grave. "It is very, very old."

"Yes, and very sadly Quenya. I have ascertained that much."

"Yet you have not taken it to the archivists or else it would be locked away."

Boromir nodded, admitting as much. "I am not sure I want others to know it is here."

"Then we shall not speak of it. None of us," Imrahil added and Lothíriel swiftly nodded, shifting nearer for a better view.

"May I see it? I think I can read the text."

"Of course." Boromir waved her to begin. She started slowly, murmuring as she translated in her head; speaking the Sindarin words aloud but low so that none in the hall should hear.

_"Hear now all peoples who bow not to the Shadow in the East, by the gift of the Lord of Mundberg we will come to dwell in the land that he names Calenardhon, and therefore I vow in my own name and on behalf of the Éothéod of the North that between us and the Great People of the West there shall be friendship for ever: their enemies shall be our enemies, their need shall be our need, and whatsoever evil, or threat, or assault may come upon them we will aid them to the utmost end of our strength."_

"It is…." She broke off, stunned as they all were. Every child in Gondor knew the oath sworn beside Elendil's tomb.

"The Oath of Eorl."

Imrahil's face blanched white. "The original. And they have sent it back." He turned, aghast, to Boromir. "Rohan forsakes her Oath. She will not now come if we should call."

_Valar_. The thought was horrifying. A pact of five hundred years undone because of one incident. A misunderstanding it now seemed to him; a stone to set dark ripples spreading in a pond. Dunmen dead. His brother captive. Their father stubbornly refusing to see.

"I am bound to report this to the council," said Boromir hollowly.

Imrahil nodded. "There is more."

Lothíriel took a breath and in a small choked voice recited the final the words:

_This vow shall descend to my heirs, all such as may come after me in our new land, and let them keep it in faith unbroken, lest the Shadow fall upon them and they become accursed._

_Accursed_. The word sent a shiver down Boromir's spine. _How could Éowyn break her oath?_ he wondered but then he remembered her heavy words: '_When Gondor calls we answer, yet when we call we have been refused. Are attacked. Without reason. Or honour._'

"She believes it is we who have broken faith," he said heavily.

"Can you blame her?" Imrahil eyes turned dark and sad. "I warned your father of exactly this. That to breech their borders unannounced was break the Oath, but he would not hear it."

_Not Imrahil, nor his brother_. "He believed the benefit outweighed the risk," said Boromir, sick at the thought of exactly how wrong they had been.

_Intelligence proved incorrect_. _Plots twisting within Meduseld itself._ How was Faramir to make sense of this? And how were they, if Father's visions were not exact?

He had no answer. Reluctantly, he arose, for telling the Steward could not wait. Lothíriel and Imrahil looked on as he unwound the scroll to its end, set the spindles straighter, readying to roll it up again. Together they took in the last lines trailing so beautifully across the cream expanse, but as they did a small, gossamer thin piece came away.

Lothíriel gasped and put out a hand. "Is it damaged?"

"Nay." Imrahil bent down to pick it up, peering closely at a blur of tiny blue. "It is different. In Sindarin. In Certh. And by another hand."

_I know whose that is._

Boromir's heart was in his mouth, his head pounding fiercely as he cleared his throat to read the much simpler script quietly aloud.

_"__Westu Léoden hál. My dearest boy, if you are reading this it is a time of great sorrow for you are now Crown Prince and I have been sung to my final rest. Cedric, on my orders, has brought this scroll to you as I have gone untimely. He knows nothing of these words, nor the King, for there are few to trust right now and far too many ears and eyes. They are on me always. Twice these last few months I have foiled dark blade or darker poison. Perhaps I have succumbed, perhaps an Orc's foul blade has bit—whatever has befallen, I have done my best to keep you and your mother and Éowyn safe. She and Éomer know only the bared bones of my suspicions. Something dark is afoot. I know not clearly what it is, but Father is not himself. Grima for certain sits at the center of the web, but this—this plot I have discovered is brazen even for him. One of our lords has been turned. Gold is moving hands, too much for the wagons of simple salt it is traded for. I believe it comes from Isengard. I have no name, but a place I have yet to see. Taalbrook, above where Avornin meets Grimslade. You must seek out Rostel in the market, the trader of stones and oddities. He first helped me. He will not betray you. Listen to his words. It grieves me to put this on you, but somehow the ill must out. Strength be in your hand and light be in your heart. Long may it be before we stand together in these halls."_

The room fell silent. His uncle and his cousin had come to their feet—shocked, saddened; knowing the heartbreaking truth that L_é_oden, too, had gone.

"Could it be a forgery?" Imrahil asked bleakly and Boromir shook his head.

"Nay, it is Théodred's own writing. I would know it anywhere." He rubbed slowly at his blow. "'Cedric was Théoden's thyle, his official orator, keeper of Rohan's lore. He passed soon after Éowyn became queen."

Imrahil's gaze snapped up. "Naturally?"

"I do not know." That should be comforting yet it set more dire thoughts chasing pell mell in a direction he did not like. Théodred was dead. Léoden was dead and Annwn grieved them both. And Cedric. All those who might help disclose the plot. "But Grima also died of plague," he said, bewildered. "Before Cedric. He cannot…."

"Have killed them all." Imrahil nodded his dark head. "Yes, but this alleges there is another. Still hidden. Believing themselves safe for now. Continuing to reap ill gotten gains. Where is Grimslade?" he asked, biting at his lip.

"The Westfold. Miles from Edoras. The estate of Grimbold, a loyal commander under Erkenbrand." _Or_ _so we believe_, Boromir reminded himself. "Only by merest chance is the Oath come to us. Théodred hid this where no Rohir would think to look. Éowyn cannot know all that she gave away." Boromir closed his eyes, a sudden weariness dragging at his bones.

_This was what Father saw_. _And what Faramir now chased._

Unknowing of the danger he was in.

He sat back down with a thud, lay a shaking hand upon his cousin's arm. "Lothi, please. I am sorry to make you work, but there is more code to do."

She brushed away a tear away but her expression was fierce as she pulled another parchment in. "I know. I will do it straight away."

"Thank you. Both of you," he added.

"There is nothing to thank," Imrahil said, laying the small piece at his daughter's left hand. "Your brother is as my own son." The prince turned away, went to stand at the tall sash windows that peeked between the rows of books. One by one he reached to close them all, not quite believing they could be watched, but neither certain they were not.

"You will show this to your father, too," he said, when Boromir moved to help.

It was a statement not a question. Boromir hesitated, one hand on a latch, shocked by the chill finger of doubt that touched his heart. _Could he?_ _Should he?_ This was his father and not just Gondor's Steward who chose not to share all with them. Who had lied to their family for reasons of his own.

The way was murky. And far from clear.

He chose to let the decision stew a bit. Imrahil saw it and frowned, a new line furrowing in his brow. "There is-more here," he said unhappily. "Of the reason for your sortie. And Faramir's captivity."

"Yes. Yes there is. I think that I shall now tell you all when Ganelon comes."

.

~~~000~~~

.

When Faramir was delivered to the door of Meduseld's small archive the next morn his first instinct was to turn around.

The space looked practically abandoned; like a library entombed in Moria or East Osgiliath's beleaguered trove after Orcs had rummaged through. Piles of tottering notes were stacked up from the floor; books and ledgers were stuffed drunkenly in the shelves and sheaves of parchment lay scattered across a table as if a dustdevil had just passed through.

It was, in short, a mess. And to compound this conclusion, a fine coat of dust lay over all as if the servants had given up hope of tidying- only a small side desk was clear.

He clanked over and shrugged out of his over tunic to roll up his sleeves. This was going to be _work_.

"I have brought you some necessary tools."

Faramir looked to find the Queen standing at the entrance dressed in her customary white and with a steaming bucket in hand. Her long hair was braided down her back, her pale linen shirt was mended at one elbow and her breeches were well worn. Ready to ride or work? he wondered, belatedly noting two rags on the bucket's rim.

"Good morning, my Lady," he said, bowing hand to heart.

"Good morning, Captain. I apologize that you will need to clean as you go, but there has been no keeper here for nigh a year."

"I can see that." He reached for the bucket's handle, thinking here again was sad evidence that in Rohan there was too work much to do and too few souls to do it. "I can clean as I go, sorting and washing to save time," he said smiling wryly, for the lady looked a little doubtful. "Our housekeeper always tells the housemaids there is nothing to fear in good clean dust."

Éowyn's mouth quirked. "It must be a Gondorian expression. Grandmother Morwen said much the same when she was instructing my brother in the hall."

"Instructing?"

"Punishment for talking back. Shoveling manure was never a hardship for Éomer. He always wound up talking to the grooms."

Faramir nodded, thinking Boromir was much the time. He set the bucket on a wooden chair and perused the challenge. "Where would you like me to start? What is kept here?"

"Census records, tithes, inventories." Éowyn turned about to take it all in. "You shall not have much difficulty deciphering what is legible. My grandfather Thengel-King kept the tradition that Sindarin is used at court. My Uncle, too. It is the reason I thought my cousin Walda might stay to help, but I believe the scale of the problem daunted him."

"Walda?!" he echoed in surprise.

"You know him?"

"Yes. Walda is one of the most learned scholars we have about the time of the Kin-strife," explained Faramir, about to enthusiastically extol a little on the man's discoveries, but then he quickly stopped himself.

It might not be diplomatic to remind Rohan's Queen that Gondor once rebelled against a king born of her forebears.

"Is there anything I should not see?" he asked, changing the subject.

Éowyn wrinkled her nose, lifting the cover of a ledger with one slim finger. Its green leather was flaking off. "Most of this is so old it should no longer matter. And more recent records from the Éoreds I can handle myself."

"You?" Faramir blinked, surprised."You are going to help?"

"For a while. Until other priorities pull me away."

A fleeting sadness flickered through her cool grey gaze. He nodded gravely but found his own throat blocked up. Her sorrow was all too plain. Here was one who needed to familiarize herself, had to know much of what went before, for those who should be instructing her were gone. She had never needed to know its treasures before—she had never expected to be Queen.

Perhaps having company for the chore, someone not connected to the tragedy, might make it easier to bear.

He took up a cloth and drenched it, squeezed out as much water as he could and decided to begin with the green-ribboned folios stacked behind the desk. They would be wiped and sorted, their nature and final location noted in a blank ledger that Éowyn set on the edge of the desk.

A careful unbinding of the ribbon showed them to be council notes—brief summaries from each year of Théoden-King's rule. He noted the dates of each, squared the edges and retied the ribbon, setting the new clean pile straight on the wooden shelf before bending to pull out two more largish stacks.

"Are not two too many?"

He straightened at the unexpected question. Éowyn was frowning, staring intently at the pile, clearly worried he might tax himself. "They are not that heavy."

"But you are recovering from a wound. I would not want to cross Omrud's instructions."

_Even when they chafe? _Faramir was about to reply he could decide for himself but then forced himself to set the load aside. The little Haradim _had_ specifically admonished him to not overwork his core and the chore of cleaning, cataloguing and restacking would only be a little slowed.

One stack and then another were set upon the desk. A quick consult had them agreeing to accomplish inventory first before deciding on a new working structure. He moved on from council notes to a small but elegant selection of botanical tomes. The plates were gorgeous—especially one devoted to the delicate but hardy miniatures of the high alpine.

He couldn't help himself, was searching each page for specimens he knew when an amused voice piped up: "I assume _you_ were never banished to your room for that punishment clearly would not have worked."

"No, ah… " Faramir flushed, looked up to find the Éowyn with the barest of wry smiles. He'd been so lost in his enjoyment he'd missed the arrival of morning tea. A pot and cups and honey now sat upon the desk.

"Forgive me, my lady. I do find books distracting. I have a small library of my own," he admitted, hastily setting the volume aside and reaching to pour out for them both. "All of us need a harbour. Books were mine as a child, a space where I could dream of dragons and write my name upon their wings. Now they are a welcome respite from the crowding of many cares."

"I understand that need." Éowyn inclined her head in thanks and took the cup from his fingertips. "My harbour is the practice ring. Working through a line of attack, making your blade a true extension of your arm is, for me, the action that causes everything to fall away."

He was unsurprised to hear that truth. "I have seen your horsemanship, my lady. I well can imagine your other skills."

She snorted. "Flattery, Captain?"

"No. Genuine appreciation! And I envy you your chance to indulge your pastime." Faramir sighed and shook his head, remembering Mithrandir's flying visits, the now vanished miracle of undisturbed hours in the archive. "If I close my eyes the smell of old leather and sealing wax, and soot to grind for ink is almost the same."

'_For one who's nose is large enough_.'

Faramir blinked in shock at Éowyn's retreating back; watched her lay her drink upon a table and go back to the books. _Did she really say that?!_ _Had he heard that correctly?_ Had she deliberately insulted his Numenorean heritage; made a joke at his expense? _Valar_, that was a surprise. The lady in close confines was rather different than the ruler he tangled with. Careful, stern and proud Éowyn–Gicel did not have ice water in her veins as he had begun to think—there was warmth there, and humour to go along with cool beauty and sharp wit. A mountain brook more than icicle—one chillier in shadow but warmed when it saw the sun.

He drank down his tea mulling over this new discovery and then resumed his task. Another half candlemark saw the small bookcase finished and the meat of the job begun: the long shelving and high cabinets of the east wall. This would certainly take days. Faramir started in the better light below the small roof window. The lower section was far more orderly—a single straight row of small ledgers sat upon the shelf.

They were clean. And recently used. He let the first fall open where it would. "Why, these are new stud books!"

Éowyn looked up at his surprise. "Yes, every mount of the Muster is there." She came to his elbow and ran a finger down columns of entries neatly scribed with 'Pynding' and 'Friá', Dam and Sire; flipping one page to the next. "There, there is my Windfola," she said, pointing. "By Westwind out of Rían. I ordered Sanor, our chief breeder, to log them all. It is perhaps redundant, for he has every horse in Rohan in his head. But," she sighed, "recent events have taught us that many things can break the chain of knowing."

The lines of sadness were back about her mouth. Faramir found that more than anything he wished for them to disappear. "Your mount has royal lineage being born of a 'queen'. My Mithros is not so illustrious, though he is a grey of Dol Amroth's line. He must be getting fat, standing and being stuffed with oats."

A little lightness rewarded his gentle smile. Éowyn grinned and shook her head. "Nay, tis not so. A groom is exercising him each day and he has the run of the pasture in good weather. My brother was quite impressed by him, actually."

"Really?!" He felt oddly pleased by her compliment. "That is high praise indeed. But Mithros has reason to be proud. He is an experienced war stallion trained by the Swan Knights."

"And will be missing you. You should go see him."

Another unanticipated kindness. He had assumed he would be not allowed. "May I?!"

"Yes. The stables are not barred to you. Only the barracks and armories beside."

That was a relief! Excited by the thought, Faramir resolved to go see his friend at the end of the day's work. He redoubled his efforts on the wall, coughing at the small clouds of rising dust, thanking _Varda_, Edoras was dry. None of the material looked to be mouldered.

He wiped away a grey film on one leather tome, entranced by a cover of branching runes and strange devices. It was lovely—and quite the find.

It proved to be a history of Calenardhon.

"My lady!" he began to call, and then glanced up.

Éowyn stood at the cabinets beside the small firegrate, unaware that she was being watched. A few tendrils of her corn-silk hair had escaped her braid and lay across her cheek. There was a smudge of dust upon her small, elegant nose. Telltale pools of tiredness lingered below her blue-grey gaze. But her smile was wide and unfettered by any care-enthralled by a find of her own, her face shone softly bright as the sun in spring, her eyes were merry and sparkling with delight.

He drank the vision in. _Yavanna_ but she was beautiful! Fairer than any maiden that he had ever seen; so much that it nearly took his breath away.

"Captain? Faramir?"

She looked askance, puzzled by his haze. He was about to try a fumbling reply when their solitude was interrupted by the arrival of Hardulf at the door.

"Min Qwen. The Marshal wants you."

Éowyn sighed softly. The glimpse of sun promptly shrank back behind a cloud-she nodded her acquiescence and explained she would return; set the aside the songbook (for so it proved to be) and followed her guard out through the door.

In their wake, Tsyr peered in, found nothing untoward and promptly stood back in the hall.

Faramir breathed a sigh of his own. Of course, he was not to be left entirely alone, but neither was he to work with a looming, frowning sentry overhead. He shook a little focus back into his head. There was work to do. His continued quasi-freedom and altogether pleasanter quarters were contingent on this chore.

He rinsed the cloth in the now cool water and went back to the wall. A few dozen history books were cleaned and righted, added to the inventory before it was back to jumbled ledger books. One by one he reviewed and sorted them—household accounts in the main, and mostly domestic for they spoke of servants wages, and pounds of tea and grain, but then a set of green leather ones, tidy and dust-free, came into view.

_Two dozen hogs. Ten foals. Twenty gold dragons._ The name on the cover said 'Geld-Eastfolde' and 3010 was drawn inside.

This was a tax roll! And gold was part of the mystery.

Heart-pounding, Faramir quickly flipped through the neatly lettered pages. The region seemed to be divided into boroughs, some familiar and some not. _Halifirien. Aldburg. Anthlo and_ _Undown_. The tax delivered to Edoras, in coin and kind, was recorded under each heading and that gave a germ of an idea. If he could find an official count of what tribute actually made it to the treasury any discrepancy with what was sent might be found.

He rifled through the long green line, excited and relieved that at last there might be a chance to do some good. The ledgers were almost in an order, by region and not by year: Eastfold, Westfold; East Emnet and West Emnet. His fingers flew through, almost shaking in anticipation. 3016….3017…

"Captain you will be pleased…."

Faramir almost jumped out of his skin. _Damn Angband wastes, Éowyn was back_!

He forced himself to still, to set the 3018 roll for Westfold slowly and unhurriedly back and turned around, willing his features to a look of polite interest.

Thank the _Valar _he had had abundant practice keeping his thoughts from off his face. Éowyn stood in the doorway with a faintly puzzled look upon her face. "Oh. I am sorry to have surprised you."

"Not at all." He took a steadying breath and searched for an excuse. He had not been instructed to avoid this section, but it wouldn't be prudent for her to know his interest. "I was concentrating. The..ah.. script was small." _And that was not even a lie._

She held out a bundle tied in the official white ribbon of the Stewards. "Here. There are letters for you. The messenger has just come in."

He took the packet and undid the tie, relieved to find that his fingers did not shake. Éowyn was watching curiously. "They must be worried that I am bored," he noted lightly, skimming the writing on the fronts. Boromir's was neat. Uncle Imrahil's florid as usual. Lothíriel's letter was so thick it felt almost like a book. The last was from Ysabet.

It smelled as if it had been drowned in rose. "They are from my brother, my uncle and my cousin. And my fiance," he added, a flush rushing up his cheeks, for suddenly he was oddly embarrassed to introduce the subject between them.

"Pardon?"

Apparently word of his betrothal had not made it as far as Rohan.

The wedding of a second son was not sufficient news. "My fiance. We are to be wed at Metarre."

He saw her catch the neutral in his tone. "It is an arranged marriage?"

"Yes. Her father has many ships."

Éowyn crossed her arms and raised a brow, bemused by his turn of words. "A woman's worth is what her father owns? I am surprised at you, Captain. In the Riddermark we are far more equable. A woman holds horses in her own right. Her Bride Price is her own to use as she sees fit."

He tried and failed to picture the immaculate and fastidious Lady of Lebennin managing a herd. "Ysabet would sell them and lavish the gold on pearls and silks. She delights in setting fashions at the court."

A swift frown showed what Éowyn thought of that, but politeness did not give it air. "Ysabet. A pretty name. I expect she misses you now have you not come home?"

_She might miss something but it likely wasn't_ _him_, Faramir thought candidly, having no illusions on that score, but then felt guilty. Ysabet always landed on her feet. She was like a cat, was probably reveling that very moment in her new status as a poor, grieving but stalwart Lady of Gondor.

"I am hoping I am not here so long that any of us has time to notice the lack."

"I am sure you are."

They set to work again and continued until the noon horns blew. A servant came to take the tray away and brought a small repast. Éowyn took her leave, reminding him to ask Tsyr for help with larger piles of tomes. As if he would. He knew to the thimbleful how much effort he could expend when wounded, although the concern set a little flame of warmth in his chest.

It was, on reflection, rather nice to have someone unexpectedly looking out for him.

Faramir ate the simple plate of meat and fruit, then fell to the work with renewed energy. The afternoon passed swiftly. By the time Tsyr delivered him to his room the sun was westering, scattering the long gold shadows that would gather in the twilight. Mithros' visit would have to wait until the morrow.

He yawned, a bit fatigued by the unaccustomed work but knew he would be unable to resist the pull of the packet in his tunic pocket.

Setting aside Ysabet's for later, he lifted the broken seal on Boromir's (it had been read as he had guessed) and opened the stiff parchment. Tucked inside was a marvelously wonky drawing of himself with a bow from Hallas, a sunny note from Merelan, and a longish letter from his brother. It began with jokes about how much a trial it was to take Mablung's reports and nary a word about their Father. _Curious_. He read swiftly, skimming through the family news and pulling up at the next to last paragraphs.

Nothing from Father. Either written by himself or sent with Boromir. _Valar_. The Steward of course was playing some game of his own, distancing himself for some unseen advantage, but still it hurt.

Disheartened, but completely helpless to do anything in the circumstance, Faramir picked up Imrahil's missive and then Lothíriel's. It felt like a warm shaft of sun through fog. She started with enquiries about his health and Annwn's, offered up a few tidbits of her time in Minas Tirith (how very pleasant it was to be away from Amrothos who could be such a tease), and then, curiously, began to reminisce.

"_The smallholders are worried about the Bay as the harvest has been wet and I was reminded of that wonderful sodden spring we spent in the Palace with each other. Do you remember how Erchirion rashly leaped from Cairvagor's bowsprit to the deck and broke his leg_?"

He did. Very well. At the time he had been enjoying a welcome respite in Dol Amroth's warm clime and Ulmo had not cooperated. It had been dismal—and unseasonably cool and damp.

"_I remember it so well, for you taught me how to spell Hyarmendacil, and Pansy."_

What a funny thing to recollect? They had been playing games—not doing school work. He had shown Lothíriel how to make a _tabula recta_—the alphabetic grid the Rangers used for simple ciphering. It was straightforward enough—but engaging for a fiercely bright 9 year old. Lothiriel had loved picking the codewords. 'Hyarmendacil' and 'pansy' had been harder ones. 'Milk' and 'book', rather easier.

He frowned, setting the first pages aside, a niggle of curiosity tugging insistently_._ Why had she brought those words to mind? Was this….deliberate? A message?

He quickly scanned the next to last pages. Sure enough, they were still scribed in Tengwar, but not written in Sindarin. Lothiriel had changed to High Elven abruptly and his brain had made the switch!

He studied the final two more closely…the Tengwar did look odd. 'b' 'l' 'd' j' It was not a real word unless you applied a shift…

_Loth! Well done, cousin_! This was how they were going to encrypt important news! Hurriedly, senses tingling with excitement, Faramir went to the little desk and took up a clean page of his own; wrote out two grids—one with letters shifted 12 spaces; the next with 5, for Lothiriel might use a bit of each. The task was laborious, time and again he had to scratch out pieces that didn't work, but eventually, well past the dinner call, he had a functioning cipher sheet. His stomach grumbled ominously but he ignored it- pages of real text began to appear. As the light fell entirely he lit the little oil lamp and kept going. Once the last lines had been decrypted he carefully folded the tabula, warmed a little of the wax from the seal and stuck it to the backside of the desk. _That would have to do for a hiding place until he had more time to think_.

Taking up the lamp, he settled on the bed to read. There was a warning from Boromir about some odd conversations with their Father; a report from Mablung that all in Ithilien was well and then, a more serious development.

His stomach fell.

_Théodred?!_ Dear gods, the Prince had uncovered part of the plot! Had had suspicions of his own-but never had a chance to pass them on. It fit, ominously, with far too many things.

And made Faramir's own search easier, yet more dangerous at once.

There was a traitor. If they had killed before they might well kill again.

Folding the pages up, he shuffled silently as he could to the unlit fireplace. A single burned paper might attract attention but not a proper fire for convalescent, and so he piled the waiting kindling into a little grid, struck a spark to the dry tinder and watched the fire grow. It caught swiftly, sent a thin tendril smoke coiling lazily up the flue. When it was going well he added on a log and touched the corner of the paper to the flame. It flared, bright like a meteor, before curling into blackened ash.

He sat back on his haunches, watched the fire work it way through the hissing, spitting wood. It was wet, like everything that long ago fateful spring. Bless Lothíriel for thinking of it. And now his own memory would have to serve. For all of that delicately, and carefully, must be done.

On the morrow he would find a way to broach a subject so painful with Annwn.

And find this Rostel in the market square.

~~~000~~~

Sometimes the music of the One played along gloriously imperfect in its tune and there came an instant, the briefest caesura, the merest grain of time or pause for breath, when a new opportunity for disharmony opened up.

The Servant of the Witch King considered this, closely, carefully, as he watched two perfectly self-absorbed, vain and pretty scions of Noble Men meet outside the hum of the Steward's Palace.

He was walking with his (unworthy, temporary) master to their usual, nightly audience with Lord Denethor with a flagon of rare first pressing beneath his arm and a smile of studied ease upon his glamoured face.

The night was fine. The air was warm and soft with that studied pleasantness that presaged autumn's return; the great and good of Minas Tirith are all out strolling in the early eve, remarking on the first faint tinge of gold to touch Mindolluin's higher glades for time was swiftly passing. For seasons and opportunities.

He knew this but did not feel it in the moment for Devrin was being unusually long-winded even for _him_, was tendentiously describing some imagined slight when their little cavalcade came upon the Lord of Lebennin's youngest daughter.

Ysabet was wandering forlornly, heroically alone about the outer walls as she and her betrothed had once been wont to do, gazing to north and west across the mountain's bulk. She had just reached the Palace's lowest step, was, as ever, beautifully dressed: silk slippers in a tone to match her gown's rich red burgundy, crystals and rubies studded along her decolletage and armbands, swaying from her delicate circlet and shining like drops of wine against her lustrous unbound raven hair.

Devrin, his own sable hair falling in artfully insouciant waves about his broad and handsome face, had stopped stock still and was looking upon the lady with a glittering intentness that could only be described as _need_. His dark eyes were overbright, his nostrils were flared and his breathing had sped up.

The Servant would not have been surprised to see him paw the ground.

_Interesting_.

He rolled the observation round. On balance they made a surprisingly good match—both were strong willed, and ruthless. Self-centered. Inclined to think the worst of people. And it was a toss up which of them spent more time on their coiffure.

The Captain was not here. The Captain would never be again if he, the Servant, had the influence he was so carefully cultivating. And if by some mischance that slippery one gained his liberty the damage would be already done.

A perfectly, wonderfully nasty plan took root.

He gave it the little required nudge. Figuratively. And literally. The elbow to Devrin's ribs reluctantly dragged his attention from the girl, the head inclined in her direction sparked the thought. He saw it burst upon the man's awareness as he bowed and hastily cleared his throat. "Lady Ysabet, would you like to join us in the Steward's study for some wine?"

She blushed, prettily, from the enticing hollow of her throat to two pale and powdered cheeks and looked up from below a fringe of ink-dark lashes. "Why thank you, my Lord. I would be thrilled to have some company."

As she set her gloved hand entirely correctly on the man's offered arm, the Servant reflected on how well pleased his Master would surely be.

_She_ would not need any of the herb that swam in her soon-to-be lover's veins.

.

.

* * *

Finally an update! Apologies that Edaid took over my muse for a little bit. That is now out of my system.. and there is nothing else currently on the horizon. Next chapter the fall festival arrives-Faramir will have a chance to seriously investigate. Will he take Eowyn into his confidence? Can Boromir keep his temper in check in the face of his father's intransigence? It will be difficult-but as Mablung finds-the Servant's spies are all around.

Thank you so so much everyone for the comments and fav and follows! You are all absolutely wonderful. As are the Ladies of the Garden for cheering this on!


	8. Chapter 8

Dear friends...

I wanted to drop a note to you all to explain that writing FTW is going to be suspended for a while.

Last week both my parents were killed by Covid. Just days apart.

I am finding in the wake of this, and the strain of the lockdown, my muse has been chased away for everything but the veriest fluff. Please know that it is not abandoned-all 25 chapters are blocked out-but it is hard to say right now exactly when I will find the energy to take it up again. Hopefully as time and healing put some distance between, the need to tell this story will stir again. I have faith it will...I just can't say when. Following might be the best way to get an alert, with FF site being a bit flukey on notices these days.

In the meantime, look for a drabble in Emyn Arnen I had unearthed earlier last month. Maybe some more of the 100 drabble challenge, if inspiration bubbles up. I hope it does...

And I very much hope you and yours stay well.

xx

Sian


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